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External hard drive questions

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pmcmvp

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 28, 2009
59
0
Hello,

I have a few questions regarding external hard drives which I hope someone can help answer. =P

i.) I have a 160G external harddrive (IOGEAR) that is fomatted to FAT32. Clicking on Get Info states its been formatted to FAT32. I have files that are over 4G on the drive and BOTH my PC and MAC can use these files. On my mac I dont have any 3rd party software (ie. Macfuse/NTFS-3G).

How is this possible? I wonder because I want to setup my new external harddrive to do the same (if possible)

ii.) If I setup a new external harddrive to be mac formatted and have my itunes library on it, can PC running itunes read from it?

iii.) If i wanted to format a new external harddrive to be NTFS and have my macs have Macfuse to be able to read/write to it, how would I format to NTFS? In Disk Utility, there is no option for it, only MS-DOS (FAT32)

Thanks in advance
 
sorry one more question

iv) i bought a simpletech external harddrive and notice the disk is spinning all the time even in idle. Do most other external harddrives the same?
 
pmcmvp said:
iii.) If i wanted to format a new external harddrive to be NTFS and have my macs have Macfuse to be able to read/write to it, how would I format to NTFS? In Disk Utility, there is no option for it, only MS-DOS (FAT32)
Click to expand...

Is it too obvious to suggest using the PC to do it?

pmcmvp said:
sorry one more question

iv) i bought a simpletech external harddrive and notice the disk is spinning all the time even in idle. Do most other external harddrives the same?
Click to expand...

Don't know about 'most' but a HD is a dumb bit of equipment, so unless the driver spins it down after a while there is no reason for it to 'sleep'. I have a Buffalo which spins down on PC as there is a Windows add on that manages this, but it runs continuously on Mac as there is no equivalent add on.
 
I dunno about the +4GB files, I always heard that you can't use files that big on FAT32, regarding the spinning disks you go to System Prefs>Energy Saver, check the option of "put the hard disks to sleep when possible", so that the systems stops them when not in use.

The option to format in NFTS appears in Disk Utility after the installation of MacFuse/Nfts-3g.

Hope it helps
 
Tumbleweed666 said:
Don't know about 'most' but a HD is a dumb bit of equipment, so unless the driver spins it down after a while there is no reason for it to 'sleep'. I have a Buffalo which spins down on PC as there is a Windows add on that manages this, but it runs continuously on Mac as there is no equivalent add on.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure my Seagate FreeAgent Go extern spins down when not in use. I don't feel it vibrating when I put my hand on it anyway, and it cools down considerably.
 
dhd said:
I dunno about the +4GB files, I always heard that you can't use files that big on FAT32, regarding the spinning disks you go to System Prefs>Energy Saver, check the option of "put the hard disks to sleep when possible", so that the systems stops them when not in use.

The option to format in NFTS appears in Disk Utility after the installation of MacFuse/Nfts-3g.

Hope it helps
Click to expand...

That doesn't always work. I have that option selected on my imac. I have a Maxtor external which will spin down when the computer sleeps or when I'm not accessing it. However, I have a Lacie hooked up to the same computer and it spins all the time, no matter if the computer is on, off, or asleep. I have to turn that drive off with the power button all the time.
 
thanks for the answers so far.

Does anyone know about question 2 regarding itunes?

thanks
 
pmcmvp said:
ii.) If I setup a new external harddrive to be mac formatted and have my itunes library on it, can PC running itunes read from it?
Click to expand...

If the PC can read the drive, so can iTunes. Just because iTunes is an Apple product doesn't mean that it can read Mac drives that Windows cannot.

You'll have to install additional drivers on your Windows system before iTunes will be able to read it.
 
Do you need both Macfuse and nfts-3G for it to work when formatted to NFTS? Or just one of them?
 
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