NTFS File systems & Macs

If I remember correctly, your Mac should be able to read it, but not write to it. Unless that was changed in one of the latest updates (ie 10.3.4).

Read only.

If you format it as FAT 32 then both can read and write--but as I recall FAT 32 has a maximum size under 40GB.

Horrortaxi said:

as I recall FAT 32 has a maximum size under 40GB.

Click to expand...

I have a 120Gb firewire drive that's Fat32 formatted and works fine under XP and OS X. Windows XP doesn't let you format HDDs bigger than... I forget what, but much smaller than 120 gigs (but it _can_ read them no problem). So you either have to use OS X (it lets you format fat 32 right?), something like Partition Magic on windows, or *nix to format it.

I really really didn't like the idea of going back to a non-journaled file system like fat32 from NTFS or HFS+, but it really is the only solution (besides using something like drive opener for windows) to share a HDD easily between platforms.

As a side note, MS has plans to start charging companies who use fat32, as it is patented. Things don't look good for digital cameras and mp3 players if this happens. I wonder what they'd do about Linux's implementation of fat32, or what about OS X, and the iPod?