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2 External Drives with MBP

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pavvento

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 3, 2007
437
0
Hey everyone,

I would like to use two external drives with my MacBook Pro. One of them would be solely for Time Machine. The other one would be for backing up certain files (movies, photos, and music) so that I can share it between computers. I have two questions in this regard:

1) Which format should I use to be able to use on Windows and Mac

2) Is there a way to have certain folders automatically sync the way idisk does? For example, every day any changes that are made in my movies, photos, or music folder are auto-updated on the hard drive, or do I need to do this manually?

Thanks for your help!
 
pavvento said:
Hey everyone,

I would like to use two external drives with my MacBook Pro. One of them would be solely for Time Machine. The other one would be for backing up certain files (movies, photos, and music) so that I can share it between computers. I have two questions in this regard:

1) Which format should I use to be able to use on Windows and Mac

2) Is there a way to have certain folders automatically sync the way idisk does? For example, every day any changes that are made in my movies, photos, or music folder are auto-updated on the hard drive, or do I need to do this manually?

Thanks for your help!
Click to expand...

maybe you should buy time capsule for the 2nd hdd for the mbp constantly backing up files??
 
I have a 160gb portable usb hard drive that I use between Mac and Windows machines. I formatted it to FAT32 and haven't had any problems, keep in mind that there is a 4gb file size limit with FAT32, and it may not work with drives over 137gb (it'll show the correct drive size but if you try to go beyond 137gb you may run into problems). You may just want to partition the drive and use half Mac and half Windows.
 
This might be of use for syncing folders, at least for Mac. If you could set this up to run periodically and/or at shutdown, this might work:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/automator/syncfolders.html

If you format a partition on your drive as FAT, both Windows and Mac can read the files on the partition, but the file system limits files to sizes of 4GB or less. If you need something larger, try MacDrive, which will let you read HFS+ (Mac formatted) drives in Windows:
http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/
 
chrisbeebops said:
This might be of use for syncing folders, at least for Mac. If you could set this up to run periodically and/or at shutdown, this might work:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/automator/syncfolders.html

If you format a partition on your drive as FAT, both Windows and Mac can read the files on the partition, but the file system limits files to sizes of 4GB or less. If you need something larger, try MacDrive, which will let you read HFS+ (Mac formatted) drives in Windows:
http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for your help. That automator looks awesome and once I pick up the second hard drive I'll try MacDrive. Thanks again!
 
pavvento said:
Thanks a lot for your help. That automator looks awesome and once I pick up the second hard drive I'll try MacDrive. Thanks again!
Click to expand...

Or instead, you can format the non-Time Machine drive as NTFS and use MacFuse.
 
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