How to share a HFS+ formated drive in XP or freenas

[cdembek]

Recently I made the switch to a MBP and wanted to add a HFS+ formated drive to my NAS "ethernet connection" (desktop PC converted to NAS device running XP).

From my searches I was pointed to Macdrive 7 and successfully formated my new drive to HFS+, however I can't figure out how to share the drive on my network.

I have also tried using freenas to share the drive, but can't figure out how to share the HFS+ formated drive.

I am sure that many folks have been down this road and I hope someone can share their success.

 

[NAG]

I would recommend not using HFS+ with that configuration.

 

[CanadaRAM]

Doesn't the NAS software share the drive out to the network as a SMB share or something similar? IIAR, In which case the formatting of the physical drive would be immaterial -- networked machines never interact directly with the disk format.

 

[NAG]

Doesn't the NAS software share the drive out to the network as a SMB share or something similar? IIAR, In which case the formatting of the physical drive would be immaterial -- networked machines never interact directly with the disk format.

Exactly, which is why I'd suggest a file format more native to the setup/recommended.

 

[cdembek]

Well if I use FAT32 I am limited to 4gig file sizes and file name length constraints.

I was hoping that freenas would allow me to share the hfs+ formated drive, however can get the software to mount the drive. I was hoping that I would find someone here that has had success with freenas and mounting a hfs+ formated drive.

 

[NAG]

You aren't limited to FAT32 and HFS+. There are other file systems out there.

 

[cdembek]

what format would you suggest?

I saw in another post someone suggested ext3, but I don't know much about that format.

 

[cdembek]

anyone??

 

[NAG]

I'd think NTFS would be fine.

 

[cdembek]

I didn't think a mac could write to NTFS

 

[jaikob]

Fat32 People.


Pwned.

 

[NAG]

I didn't think a mac could write to NTFS

The drive is connected to the mac via a network, right?

 

[CanadaRAM]

I didn't think a mac could write to NTFS

Sigh. See post 3

You're using a PC with Windows, not a Mac. The PC talks to the drive hardware. the NAS software then shares that to the network.

The Mac will see a network share as a SMB share - it doesn't know or care what the formatting of the physical drive is.

 

[cdembek]

ended up using partition magic and formated ext3

the FreeNas software doesn't allow you to mount HFS+ for some reason

 

[gamer.pro.2000]

ended up using partition magic and formated ext3

the FreeNas software doesn't allow you to mount HFS+ for some reason

You can't use HFS+ to mount partitions in FreeNAS. You have to format your drives in the UFS (Universal File System). Then you can share the drives and use them for Time Machine, File Sharing, Etc. Just move the data to someplace else, wipe the drive and format it to UFS and move the data back. Then you're set. FreeNAS even does Bonjour.