Buying an External Hard Drive

[Damien]

I have brought a external Hard drive which I am waiting to be shipped to me.

What is it like to use it to ferry content back and forth between a Windows and a Mac? Will it work or are the filing systems going to stop this from working

 

[CrackedButter]

Format the drive to FAT32 and you'll have no problems.

 

[JDN]

Or you could format it to the Mac HFS whatever, and then install MacDrive on the windows PC.

I am not sure which route would work most hassle free.

 

[Damien]

Format the drive to FAT32 and you'll have no problems.

Does not that cause problems with large files?

 

[CrackedButter]

Does not that cause problems with large files?

How large? Lets not forget that ipods are formatted as FAT32 and can be read by both operating systems without any problems... they have large files on them.

 

[JDN]

Only files larger than 4Gb cause problems on FAT32

 

[erikamsterdam]

Do NOT format the drive at all! It will ship to you formatted as FAT32 and that works perfectly on all OS-ses.
If you try to reformat it you will need special tools as Window$ can only format 32GB max in FAT32. You will need a disk utility program to format larger drives in FAT32 so beware.

 

[Eraserhead]

If you try to reformat it you will need special tools as Windows can only format 32GB max in FAT32. You will need a disk utility program to format larger drives in FAT32 so beware.

But Mac's can format to FAT32 as big as you like 😉.

 

[erikamsterdam]

But Mac's can format to FAT32 as big as you like 😉.

Really? Since Tiger then or so? Cos I once had a lot of trouble with this on a Panther machine, and I could not format the external drive anymore in FAT32.
What *is* highly annoying is that OS X cannot read NTFS, something that every Linux distro can.

 

[4np]

What *is* highly annoying is that OS X cannot read NTFS, something that every Linux distro can.

That's not true... Both OS X and most unix clones can read NTFS but they cannot write to it... but I agree; it's annoying 🙂

But Mac's can format to FAT32 as big as you like 😉.

I don't know if you're right; but if you are you might run intro trouble. While Fat32 volumes can be up to 8TiB Windows XP only supports volumes of maximum 32GB in size... So if you want to use them with windows pc's as well you'd better not format larger volumes.

 

[phineas]

I have brought a external Hard drive which I am waiting to be shipped to me.

What is it like to use it to ferry content back and forth between a Windows and a Mac? Will it work or are the filing systems going to stop this from working

I bought a WD Netcenter 500 gig, plugged it in went through there web interface to adjust security and such, have not touched it since going on 4 months. It can be either USB, Cat5, or firewire I think, had a lacie, and had nothing but problems with it.

BOL

 

[Eraserhead]

While Fat32 volumes can be up to 8TiB Windows XP only supports volumes of maximum 32GB in size... So if you want to use them with windows pc's as well you'd better not format larger volumes.

Wrong, third party apps can format FAT32 bigger than 32GB, Windows is artificially limited and cannot format disks larger than 32GB but can read them.

 

[Damien]

Thanks! I only need to use it to ferry files from Uni for the next month or so then I can revert to using it for Videos and such.

So when that happens, should I use the mac file format (and what is it) and can windows read it?

Cheers

 

[Eraserhead]

Thanks! I only need to use it to ferry files from Uni for the next month or so then I can revert to using it for Videos and such.

So when that happens, should I use the mac file format (and what is it)

Only change if your video files are bigger than 4GB, the format is HFS+

and can windows read it?

No unless you have Macdrive installed on the PC.