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External HD format for windows and Mac?

A

alpha752

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 25, 2011
25
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Please forgive this noob question. I'm new to OS X.

I have an external HD, iomega I think. It can formatted for Mac, and works great on my MBA. I want to be able to use it to transfer files between my windows machine and my MBA, along with do time machine backups.

Is there a format I can format this drive to that works on both systems? And how do I format it on OS X?

Thanks.
 
GGJstudios

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,545
943
FAT32 (File Allocation Table)
  • Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
  • Maximum file size: 4GB.
  • Maximum volume size: 2TB
NTFS (Windows NT File System)
  • Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
  • Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
    [*]To Read/Write/Format NTFS from Mac OS X: Install NTFS-3G for Mac OS X (free)
  • Some have reported problems using Tuxera (approx 33USD).
  • Native NTFS support can be enabled in Snow Leopard, but is not advisable, due to instability.
  • AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support NTFS
  • Maximum file size: 16 TB
  • Maximum volume size: 256TB
HFS+ (Hierarchical File System, a.k.a. Mac OS Extended)
  • Read/Write HFS+ from native Mac OS X
  • Required for Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner backups of Mac internal hard drive.
  • To Read/Write HFS+ from Windows, Install MacDrive
  • To Read HFS+ (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer
  • Maximum file size: 8EiB
  • Maximum volume size: 8EiB
exFAT (FAT64)
  • Supported in Mac OS X only in 10.6.5 or later.
  • Not all Windows versions support exFAT. See disadvantages.
  • exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table)
  • AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support exFAT
  • Maximum file size: 16 EiB
  • Maximum volume size: 64 ZiB
You can format drives in Mac OS X using Disk Utility, which came installed on your Mac, in the /Applications/Utilities folder.
 
A

alpha752

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 25, 2011
25
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Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_8 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E401 Safari/6533.18.5)

Thanks for that break down.

It looks like HFS+ is the best choice, but I don't want to pay $50. I'll likely have files over 4gb so Fat is out. Looks like NTFS is my best bet? Does Time Machine support NTFS?

Is there a better choice then NTFS? The only problem with HFS+ is the cost of getting my windows machine to read it. What would you use?

Thanks a ton!
 
GGJstudios

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,545
943
A

alpha752

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 25, 2011
25
0
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_8 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E401 Safari/6533.18.5)

Duh! I cant believe I didn't think of partitioning it out. I'm an idiot.

Thanks for the help!
 
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