External drive is sitting unused, don't know how to format?

[dagogo]

I just picked up a new Hitachi 500gb external drive. I want to use it as a network drive attached to airport extreme between mac and XP machines.

I will move my itunes library there and have many video files over 4gb so fat32 is out. I also don't want to use macdrive on the windows machine.

That leaves 2 choices 1) install macfuse on the macs and use NTFS, or 2) format Ext2.

Problem is, I don't understand enough about the technical nature of either method to know if they will work with the drive being accessed through the router?

Any input certainly appreciated.

http://guides.macrumors.com/Drives_and_Filesystems
http://www.ntfs-3g.org/

 

[AbsenceOfTruth]

I formated mine using HFS+ (Mac Format) and have it shared over the network using Sharepoints. Other computers will be able to read and write to it as long as it is not directly connected to the Windows PCs. But I also have it connected to my Mac via Firewire and it works great.

 

[dagogo]

sounds like a great way to go absenceoftruth, problem for me is i can't easily connect it to my imac (it's in the kitchen on a counter). i planned to dump my lossless itunes library on it and plug it into the extreme since that is out of the way in an alcove in another room.

I could put it with the xp machine, but that's turned off fairly often, plus, i burn all the cd's and do most of the audio/video stuff on the imac downstairs anyway. so that doesn't seem to make much sense...

the macfuse way seems like it might be the way to go but i don't even understand how to download it, various packages, etc. ??

 

[AbsenceOfTruth]

I would say go NTFS with Macfuse then.

As of downloading and how to use it, I'm not sure. I guess you are gonna have to wait on that from someone else on these forums. Good luck!