Built in Mac archiver question

[LurkerDood]

Hi

I'm a noob to Macs. Just bought a MBP 17" and still waiting for it to ship.

Right now I'm just reading up alot but I have a question about the archiver where you right click on the file and it would zip it up for you.

I'm trying to figure out how I am going to transfer files from the Mac to Windows.

I'm thinking of getting a USB thumb drive but in order for both OS's to see it, it has to be in FAT32 right? That has a 2 gig limit and my files are going to be much bigger then that so I would need to split up it up into smaller pieces. So does the built in archiver do that, if not what's a good program to use to split them up and for me to unsplit them later in Windows?

Thanks

 

[Eidorian]

The single file size limit for FAT32 is 4 GB minus a few bytes. Not to mention HFSExplorer and MacDrive can read HFS+ formatted volumes in Windows.

 

[LurkerDood]

The single file size limit for FAT32 is 4 GB minus a few bytes. Not to mention HFSExplorer and MacDrive can read HFS+ formatted volumes in Windows.

Yes, Sorry I meant 4 gigs. My files are still going to be bigger then that. HFSExplorer and MacDrive are programs that can be used in Windows to see the HFS+ formatted drives? Sorry I'm totally out of the loop regarding Macs lol but would the built in archiver let me split files into multiple pieces?

 

[mackindergarten]

Hi,

do you have a network cable lying around (can be regular or crossover) so you could connect the Windows machine and your MBP. If you have a router you can also connect both machines to that.

If you have Gigabit on the windows machine you could get good speed for transferring the files and you would not have to worry about thumb drives, file systems or splitting files.

Normally the Windows machine should show up in the Shared section of Finder and you can browse the directories shared on the Windows machine, allowing you to simply copy over everything.


It works via WLAN as well but with lower speeds but you can still skip the splitting / thumb drive thing.

Hope this was helpful
/Rupert

 

[LurkerDood]

Hi,

do you have a network cable lying around (can be regular or crossover) so you could connect the Windows machine and your MBP. If you have a router you can also connect both machines to that.

If you have Gigabit on the windows machine you could get good speed for transferring the files and you would not have to worry about thumb drives, file systems or splitting files.

Normally the Windows machine should show up in the Shared section of Finder and you can browse the directories shared on the Windows machine, allowing you to simply copy over everything.


It works via WLAN as well but with lower speeds but you can still skip the splitting / thumb drive thing.

Hope this was helpful
/Rupert

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. I'm going to follow what Eidorian said and get MacDrive. I Googled the thing and it looks like just the thing I'm looking for and much cheaper and faster then buying a 32 gig USB thumb drive. Also going the network route, don't you need your drive to be formatted in FAT32? If so, I can't go there since my files are HUGE.


Thanks

 

[Eidorian]

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. I'm going to follow what Eidorian said and get MacDrive. I Googled the thing and it looks like just the thing I'm looking for and much cheaper and faster then buying a 32 gig USB thumb drive. Also going the network route, don't you need your drive to be formatted in FAT32? If so, I can't go there since my files are HUGE.


Thanks

Filesystem is irrelevant for the most part over networks. If you're using NTFS and HFS+ you're not going to run into the FAT32 file size limitations. Network file protocols (SMB/FTP in this case) take care of translation to disk otherwise.

 

[LurkerDood]

Filesystem is irrelevant for the most part over networks. If you're using NTFS and HFS+ you're not going to run into the FAT32 file size limitations. Network file protocols (SMB/FTP in this case) take care of translation to disk otherwise.

Thanks but I like what I'm seeing in the MacDrive that you suggested.

 

[alphaod]

Or you can just format the drive as NTFS and get MacFuse.