Iomega Compact Edition Hard Drive with MacBook Pro and Snow Leopard.

[ofiaich]

Hi everyone,

I am new to Mac and will search for more on this.

I have been given a brand new Iomega Compact Edition Hard Drive 500 gb to use with MacBook Pro.

My use would be to store video, music, documents, and I will learn how to back up my MacBook Pro to the USB hard drive.

I can see in the instructions that it suggests to format the drive for Mac OS.

1. select Applications -> Utilities -> Disc Utility...
2. In the left column, click on the drive icon for the Iomega Drive. Make sure you click on the orange drive icon, not the volume icon

3. select partition tab.
4. Change volume scheme from current to 1 Partition
5. select Mac OS Extended (journalled) from the format drop down menu.
6. Click on the options button
7. select the type of partition needed for your Mac.

GUID Partition Table for bootability on an intel based Mac

Apple Partition Map for a Power-PC Based MAC

8 click oK.
9. click apply ( 10.5 - 10.6 ) or partition (10.4). The drive is ready to use when format completes.


I do have another smaller drive, that I can use and run files on Windows XP as well as my MacBook Pro.

I can run video files from that hard drive on both my XP Machine and my MacBook Pro.

What are the benefits of formatting for the Mac?

I am thinking it is best to format the drive for the Mac because the default NTFS structure is not best suited to the Mac.

Off to the Wiki now and Mrs. Google!

Any advice much appreciated!

Ofiaich

 

[tpg]

The NTFS filesystem requires defragmenting at regular intervals, however HFS (the mac filesystem) does not. Also, I'm pretty sure NTFS/FAT32 won't support UNIX style file permissions, which would be necessary to maintain these properties after restoring files from backup.

If you're only using this drive as a time machine backup, I'd format it for the Mac.

If you need to swap files with windows though, it is much easier to use NTFS or FAT32...

 

[ofiaich]

thanks tpg!

I think I will only use it for my MacBook!

This afternoon, I will format for Mac and will follow the steps 1 - 9.

I will then check out TimeMachine.

I have a some photo's and videos that I want to seen on my Mac but my portable Windows drive allows me to see and play those.

Thanks!

Ofiaich