Flash Drives on Macs/PCs

[Aelyrin]

Hello,

My wife is a student in a graduate program where she has a need for a Flash Drive to be able to work from various machines. I am buying her a Macbook (white) and wondering as her home machine is a PC and most of the computers @ the school are PCs, if she is running windows under Parallels will it read a flash drive that is formatted to windows?

If not, is there a way around this problem?

 

[jTreu]

i havent had a problem going from mac to pc with a flash drive, get her a refurb shuffle for $29, that way she can have an mp3 player and a flash drive in one, i love mine for that.

also, you might want to consider a program called gdisk, i use it for mac but am not sure if available for pc, basically it lets you upload all types of files to a gmail account so you can access and download them anywhere, i found it on softpedia.com i think.

 

[Dubba]

I second that; I use my 1GB 1st Generation Shuffle as a flash drive that gives me the optionality of an iPod (the only one that I own).

Definitely the way to go, in my opinion.

 

[Eraserhead]

Hello,

My wife is a student in a graduate program where she has a need for a Flash Drive to be able to work from various machines. I am buying her a Macbook (white) and wondering as her home machine is a PC and most of the computers @ the school are PCs, if she is running windows under Parallels will it read a flash drive that is formatted to windows?

If not, is there a way around this problem?

Flash drives are formatted FAT32 and work perfectly with OS X, Windows and Linux, I have never had a problem with mine.

 

[gr8tfly]

most come formatted as MS-DOS FAT16. OS-X will mount it just fine. You can refomat in Disk Utility as MS-DOS and it will be FAT32. Only issue I've seen is where you have a LOT of small files (hundreds or thousands), the DOS formatted flash drive will be slower.

I use it quite often to sneaker-net between PBG4 and PC in other room. (I keep file sharing off on PC and Mac, in general).

 

[Aelyrin]

Great! She actually has an old ipod shuffle sitting around! I had no idea this would work. Thanks so much everyone!

 

[SMM]

Flash drives are formatted FAT32 and work perfectly with OS X, Windows and Linux, I have never had a problem with mine.

Absolutely correct! No formatting involved, no drivers to install. The only small downside is, some of the drives require a reboot (or connected first) before the system will see them (especially PC's).

One word of caution; some suggested getting a shuffle. Not that it is a bad idea understand, but I went from a 512MB, 1GB, 2GB, 6GB, 18GB to a 30GB in a little over a year. The little things are really handy. Frys will usually have these on special for 1/2 off. The best deals come around about every 3rd week, although the small capacity drives are featured every week.

 

[Aelyrin]

http://www.iomega.com/direct/produc...&ASSORTMENT<>ast_id=63191&bmUID=1162838402341

Would something like this work? Its portable, requires no power cord, and it SAYS dual interface. Says that it can be used by mac or pc seamlessly, I assume this means you can use it on a pc, then plug it into a macbook and it will just read it.

Any insite as always is very appreciated!

 

[kgarner]

http://www.iomega.com/direct/produc...&ASSORTMENT<>ast_id=63191&bmUID=1162838402341

Would something like this work? Its portable, requires no power cord, and it SAYS dual interface. Says that it can be used by mac or pc seamlessly, I assume this means you can use it on a pc, then plug it into a macbook and it will just read it.

Any insite as always is very appreciated!

The dual interface they refer to is that it can be used via USB or Firewire. While you can use it on etiher Mac or PC you have to be sure that it is formatted FAT32, as Macs cannot write (but they can read) to NTFS (WinXP native format) volumes and PCs cannot read or write to HFS+ (Mac native format) volumes. While it will work, I think it would be overkill unless you need to haul around that much information.

 

[Aelyrin]

The dual interface they refer to is that it can be used via USB or Firewire. While you can use it on etiher Mac or PC you have to be sure that it is formatted FAT32, as Macs cannot write (but they can read) to NTFS (WinXP native format) volumes and PCs cannot read or write to HFS+ (Mac native format) volumes. While it will work, I think it would be overkill unless you need to haul around that much information.

Sounds like Ill just let her use her shuffle! She really only carries around probably 100Mbs of data, namely her thesis and dissertation so it should be more than enough.

Thanks again everyone, your help has been invaluable!