Best way to share an External HDD between Windows and Mac

Discussion in 'iMac' started by ram4apple, Jun 14, 2011.

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  1. ram4apple, Jun 14, 2011

    ram4apple macrumors newbie

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2011
    #1
    Hi Guys,

    Can an external hdd be used in both windows and mac ?. I would like to transfer some files from the iMac to the NTFS formatted HDD and put them on my wife's laptop (Windows)

    I tried NTFS3G and also tried editing the fstab to add the UUID of the HDD and make it rw.

    none of them worked properly.

    This should not be that hard, and it started to get really painfull when i cant get all the my movies off the iMac.

    Any good Suggestions or am I missing anything here ?

    what did you guys do when you made the switch to the Mac.

    Please help me.

    Thank you

    Ram
     
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  2. Hellhammer, Jun 14, 2011

    Hellhammer Moderator

    Hellhammer

    Staff Member

    Joined:
    Dec 10, 2008
    Location:
    Finland
    #2
    FAT32 is accessible by both OSs natively, so it's your best option as long as your files are smaller than 4GB (does not accept +4GB files). exFAT is another option if you're running Windows 7.
     
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  3. GraceMolloy, Jun 14, 2011

    GraceMolloy macrumors regular

    GraceMolloy

    Joined:
    Oct 28, 2006
    Location:
    Kentucky
    #3
    2nd for exFAT, I do on occasion have an issue with being able to empty the trash of a file from the exFAT drive but the next time I reboot it is fine. Osx thinks the file is in use. But not a huge deal.

    - via iPhone
     
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  4. dfine1966, Jun 14, 2011

    dfine1966 macrumors 6502

    Joined:
    Apr 9, 2011
    #4
    I use exFat and it works great. Both operating systems read and write to the drive.
     
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  5. MacAndMic, Jun 14, 2011

    MacAndMic macrumors 6502

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2009
    #5
    For just this purpose, why not just set up a shared folder on your machine and connect over the network.
     
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