External Hard Drive format for Mac and Windows

[fitzpayne]

I bought a new 1TB external hard drive. What formats should I choose in Disk Utility to make this disc compatible with both Mac and Windows? I rarely have files over 2GB and my Mac is running on Snow Leopard.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Fat32 is the only format that Windows and OS X can naively read.

Notes: Fat32 is slow to write under OS X.
HFS cannot be read using Windows unless you install 3rd party drivers

 

[GGJstudios]

FAT32

• Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
• No individual file larger than 4GB.

NTFS

• Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
• Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
• To Read/Write NTFS from Leopard: Install MacFUSE and NTFS-3G. You can install both with NTFS-3G for Mac OS X.
• To Read/Write NTFS from Snow Leopard: Guide: Enable native NTFS Read/Write in Snow Leopard
• (Be aware that some are of the opinion that enabling native NTFS in SL is unstable/unreliable, and favor the MacFuse/NTFS-3G method for Snow Leopard)

HFS

• Read/Write HFS from native Mac OS X
• To Read/Write HFS from Windows, Install MacDrive
• To Read HFS (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer

 

[fitzpayne]

Thanks, thejadedmonkey!

So FAT32 will just be slower when copying files to the external hard drive? No other drawbacks?

 

[speedwaygirl]

Thanks, thejadedmonkey!

So FAT32 will just be slower when copying files to the external hard drive? No other drawbacks?

I'm in the same boat. Wanted to add my external drive to Airport Base Station as a back up. That file maximum of 4GB is going to be a real drawback for me. May just need to keep those files on a different drive.

Thanks for the info folks!