I have many DVDs with photos on them made mostly with Linux Ubuntu and Linux mint. I wish to transfer these photos to an external hard disk which I can then use with my MacBook Air 2020. Would there be compatibility issues. And can anyone recommend a decent external hard disk drive that would be suitable.
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Advice concerning photos and external hard disk
- Thread starter Out2Grass
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There are several layers of compatibility.
My biggest concern is those DVDs. While some are simply discs filled with files, others use a proprietary system that might require running an app - if there's not a viewer app for Mac, life may get challenging.
The photos themselves are unlikely to be in a proprietary format. Mac can read a wide variety of image file types, so no worries there.
The formatting of the external hard drive is a compatibility factor - two factors:
Connection type - USB-A, USB-C, Thunderbolt. Obviously, that needs to be consistent with the connections available on your Mac.
Formatting - All external drives come pre-formatted from the factory, but you can erase and reformat any external drive to suit your needs, using Disk Utility on the Mac, prior to putting the drive into active service.
When a drive is advertised to be compatible with both Windows and Mac, it generally means it's formatted in ExFAT - a Windows format that Macs can both read and write (and you will need to be able to both read and write to that drive). If you want/need to connect the same external drive to both Windows and Mac machines, then ExFAT is the way to go. You can also use the MS-DOS FAT format for drives that are 32 GB or smaller (USB thumb drives).
If the drive happens to be formatted NTFS (Windows NT File System) then it will have to be erased/reformatted prior to use - Mac does not (natively) work with NTFS-formatted disks.
Some drives come specifically Mac-formatted. If you'll only be operating in a Mac world, it's a nice little convenience, but you may pay more for a Mac-specific drive than the convenience is worth.
I could go on and on regarding disk formats, but this should give you the basic overview.
My biggest concern is those DVDs. While some are simply discs filled with files, others use a proprietary system that might require running an app - if there's not a viewer app for Mac, life may get challenging.
The photos themselves are unlikely to be in a proprietary format. Mac can read a wide variety of image file types, so no worries there.
The formatting of the external hard drive is a compatibility factor - two factors:
Connection type - USB-A, USB-C, Thunderbolt. Obviously, that needs to be consistent with the connections available on your Mac.
Formatting - All external drives come pre-formatted from the factory, but you can erase and reformat any external drive to suit your needs, using Disk Utility on the Mac, prior to putting the drive into active service.
When a drive is advertised to be compatible with both Windows and Mac, it generally means it's formatted in ExFAT - a Windows format that Macs can both read and write (and you will need to be able to both read and write to that drive). If you want/need to connect the same external drive to both Windows and Mac machines, then ExFAT is the way to go. You can also use the MS-DOS FAT format for drives that are 32 GB or smaller (USB thumb drives).
If the drive happens to be formatted NTFS (Windows NT File System) then it will have to be erased/reformatted prior to use - Mac does not (natively) work with NTFS-formatted disks.
Some drives come specifically Mac-formatted. If you'll only be operating in a Mac world, it's a nice little convenience, but you may pay more for a Mac-specific drive than the convenience is worth.
I could go on and on regarding disk formats, but this should give you the basic overview.
How much drive space do you need. SSDs would be faster and more suitable to routine use, rotational is cheaper and are more suitable for one time use or backup. If you are just looking for a temporary drive to transfer files, then grab a cheap (on sale) rotational with about twice as much storage space you need with cables that will connect to both machines, usually USB interfaces are more compatible across platforms. These things are less than $100 now days for TBs of storage.
Using the drive as a working library is different, and I would recommend using one of the several portable SSD drives. And then you need to think about backup, either on the computer or another external drive/NAS. These can be inexpensive rotational drives as backups are in the background, where working libraries are not.
Will you be using Photos to manage your media on the MAC. If so you'l want to import the files into photos, which will have its own library. DVDs have its own questions, basically what formate ar they in (disk image, VOB, or ripped)
So it gets complicated when you ask for the mose suitable drive. You can make just about anything work.
Using the drive as a working library is different, and I would recommend using one of the several portable SSD drives. And then you need to think about backup, either on the computer or another external drive/NAS. These can be inexpensive rotational drives as backups are in the background, where working libraries are not.
Will you be using Photos to manage your media on the MAC. If so you'l want to import the files into photos, which will have its own library. DVDs have its own questions, basically what formate ar they in (disk image, VOB, or ripped)
So it gets complicated when you ask for the mose suitable drive. You can make just about anything work.
Easy answer is to pick up a WD EasyStore drive. Those drives are formatted as exFAT, which means any OS can read and write to them. I use a 5TB EasyStore drive for both my iTunes content and Steam library, as well as backing up all of my school and work documents and assets. You would need a USB-C to USB adapter (or pick up a USB-C version of the HDD cable) to connect to the MBA if it's a USB-C model.
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I don't think there will be compatibility problems reading the DVD discs. In the normal situation a Linux box is going to format a CD or DVD in ISO 9660 format, which Macs have been able to read for 20+ years. And as @ApfelKuchen says, the image files themselves are likely standard formats that any computer operating system will be able to read (JPG, PNG, TIFF, etc).
I'm using a LaCie 1TB SSD - the cute orange cushioned one - that connects via USB-C and it's great for backups and media storage.