Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

jacksoncmc835

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 20, 2011
67
0
Been wathcing videos on youtube about partioing a hardrive and was wonding if anyone could answer a few questions which are unclear about the differnt formats.

Frist lets start with Fat which is used so you can read and write file between mac and window... After doign some reading it presents that this works but is not ideal for larger hard drives. Im planning on partioing a 2tb drive 4 to 5 times and was gonna make one this format so i can tranfer files bettwen the two oses, the articel presented the the Fat formate will jumble of the files... will this cuase these files to possibley be stored in all partions?

also when looking at a previousd bootcamp partion is will allow exFAT which packs the info differntly? and is better? why does this only show up with a bootcamp partion.

My next question has to do with the format named Free, this shows up somtime and others it doesnt... can anyone tell me about this?
 
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
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.