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Hard drive Formatting

F

ferrin

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 15, 2011
5
0
Philadelphia
I have this:
http://www.simpletech.com/content/signature-mini-espresso-120-gb

A 120GB external hard drive and the formatting options are NTFS & exFAT. Currently it's NTFS.

I also have this:
http://www.overstock.com/Electronic...e-U3-USB-2.0-Flash-Drive/2996146/product.html

A 512MB flash drive with the formatting options FAT32, FAT, & exFat. Currently it's FAT.

----------------------------------

Okay, so here's my question, I am a new Mac user. My MacBook is on it's way to me as I type. I want to use both my flash drive and my hard drive with both my PC and my MAC. I've done a ton of reading in this topic but I need a straight answer. hah.

I have used my Flash drive on a Mac yesterday at school and it worked fine. I opened files, created and saved files to it and then opened them up on my PC. So does this mean I can leave it formatted FAT?

I haven't tried my hard drive just yet, but I've read every where that the current format it's in can't do what I want it to do.

I need to save to, open, edit, etc between both my PC and my Mac.

:apple: halp!
 
Any external hard drive will work with PCs or Macs, as long as the connectors are there (Firewire, USB, etc.) It doesn't matter how the drive is formatted out of the box, since you can re-format any way you like. Formatting in HFS (Mac OS Extended) or FAT32 or NTFS can be done with the Mac OS X Disk Utility.

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.
  • exFAT partitions created with OS X 10.6.5 are inaccessible from Windows 7
  • 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
 
GGJstudios said:
Any external hard drive will work with PCs or Macs, as long as the connectors are there (Firewire, USB, etc.) It doesn't matter how the drive is formatted out of the box, since you can re-format any way you like. Formatting in HFS (Mac OS Extended) or FAT32 or NTFS can be done with the Mac OS X Disk Utility.


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
Click to expand...

so the third bullet seems to be the way to go then, i guess? i just wait til i have my mac, plug in my hard drive then install it?
 
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