external drive

[lbautista23]

ok i just bought a 13" mbp and i wanted to transfer my pics and music from my external drive onto my mac drive.

the external drive was used for my windows laptop. can i copy the files onto the mac drive? can i copy files from mac drive to external drive?

 

[xxBURT0Nxx]

drives need to be formatted in FAT32 to be written to by mac and pc

 

[simsaladimbamba]

See below what file system does suit your needs:

FAT32 (File Allocation Table)

• Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
• Maximum file size: 4GB.
• Maximum volume size: 2TB

NTFS (Windows NT File System)

• Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
• Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
  [*]To Read/Write/Format NTFS from Mac OS X: Install NTFS-3G for Mac OS X (free)
  
• Some have reported problems using Tuxera (approx 33USD).
• Native NTFS support can be enabled in Snow Leopard, but is not advisable, due to instability.
• AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support NTFS
• Maximum file size: 16 TB
• Maximum volume size: 256TB

HFS+ (Hierarchical File System, a.k.a. Mac OS Extended)

• Read/Write HFS+ from native Mac OS X
• Required for Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner backups of Mac internal hard drive.
• To Read/Write HFS+ from Windows, Install MacDrive
• To Read HFS+ (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer
• Maximum file size: 8EiB
• Maximum volume size: 8EiB

exFAT (FAT64)

• Supported in Mac OS X only in 10.6.5 or later.
• Not all Windows versions support exFAT. See disadvantages.
• exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table)
• AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support exFAT
• Maximum file size: 16 EiB
• Maximum volume size: 64 ZiB

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Have you also taken a look at MRoogle, since that question may have been asked several times?

 

[gorskiegangsta]

ok i just bought a 13" mbp and i wanted to transfer my pics and music from my external drive onto my mac drive.

the external drive was used for my windows laptop. can i copy the files onto the mac drive? can i copy files from mac drive to external drive?

if the external drive is NTFS formatted, the Mac will only be able to read from it (i.e. you'll be able to copy files from it to the Mac without problem, but you won't be able to write to it).

if the external drive is FAT32 or ExFAT, both Macs and PCs will be able to both read from and write to it.

in the future, if you want your drive to be accessible by both Mac and Windows PCs, I recommend you format it in ExFAT, it's exactly like FAT32 but without partition and file size limitations

 

[Cave Man]

if the external drive is NTFS formatted, the Mac will only be able to read from it (i.e. you'll be able to copy files from it to the Mac without problem, but you won't be able to write to it).

But all you have to do is install MacFuse and NTFS-3G, both of which are freeware, and you can write to NTFS just fine.