HDD storage with MAC and PC

[neo738]

Hey everyone

I'm after some advice for a HDD backup solution. I use MAC and the fiancee is a PC person who doesn't want to changeover to MAC for a number of reasons.(probably won't change)

What I'm wanting to do is get a 1Tb HDD for a backup solution so I can use timemachine on my MAC to backup my laptop(250Gb which is 90% full) and have plenty of spare space for the inevitable growing data.

She wants wants to be able to access the itunes library(currently 47 gig) and all the photos in the iphoto library (currently 44gig) aswell have a backup of her Dell laptop( about 60gig).

The aim is to have the HDD available wirelessly after we both backup using ethernet or USB. Also I want a HDD that is at least RAID 1/mirrior copy capable so I can have redundancy(when I have two 1Tb HDDs) and eventually add this 1Tb to the larger backup solution using JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) RAID system in the future.

Current router only has ethernet(no USB) and sits on kitchen bench where I do not want 1Tb HDD. Do have a spare VOIP router.

I'd appreciate some advice
Thanks

 

[packgrad2000]

You do realize that if you want a Mac & PC to be able to read and write the same partition it has to be formatted FAT32? Which means the file size is limited to 4GB. A Windows machine cannot even read HFS+, and a Mac can read but not write to NTFS.

 

[fergwad]

not sure about the rest of this stuff, but if she just wants to "access" the itunes music, you can do a shared library over the network.

 

[kudukudu]

You do realize that if you want a Mac & PC to be able to read and write the same partition it has to be formatted FAT32? Which means the file size is limited to 4GB. A Windows machine cannot even read HFS+, and a Mac can read but not write to NTFS.

This isn't totally true. There are some third party open source drivers that will allow read/write to NTFS from mac OS that replace OS X's existing NTFS drivers. I have considered using these myself, but I want to find out how bullet proof they are first:

http://www.ntfs-3g.org/

your other option would be to have a mac volume and access it from windows using macdrive. This program has been around for quite a while:

http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/