Mac storage, Fat32 & NTFS

[AnJie x]

I will be getting a Mac Book Pro 13' Inch Retina Display 256 GB by next week. One of my friends who has a mac said the storage device need to be formatted to FAT32 to support Mac. I want to know whether the Internal Storage is using FAT32 file system, If so how to make it NTFS. And how to make the other storage devices like USB's, External Hard Drives which uses NTFS file systems to work on the Mac.

Please Help

 

[Jinzen]

Mac uses HFS+ but can read any of the Windows formats fine. It can also deal with NTFS but not without a few tweaks.

So you don't really need to do much for preparation. Maybe not use NTFS for external storage.

 

[Fl0r!an]

Just go with ExFAT for external drives, it's natively supported by both OS X and Win and has none of the drawbacks FAT32 has.

 

[maflynn]

OS X has a native disk format called HFS+, it can read NTFS, it can read/write FAT32

As mentioned you can add full NTFS compatibility which isn't generally needed

 

[AnJie x]

Mac uses HFS+ but can read any of the Windows formats fine. It can also deal with NTFS but not without a few tweaks.

So you don't really need to do much for preparation. Maybe not use NTFS for external storage.

I will be dual booting my Mac. NTFS is needed to install MySQL and etc. So I would really want my Internal Storage to write NTFS as well. Any solution?

 

[AnJie x]

Just go with ExFAT for external drives, it's natively supported by both OS X and Win and has none of the drawbacks FAT32 has.

Oh alright. But will it support the .Net Framework based software like MySQL and others to be installed on ExFat

 

[AnJie x]

OS X has a native disk format called HFS+, it can read NTFS, it can read/write FAT32

As mentioned you can add full NTFS compatibility which isn't generally needed

How can the full compatibility for NTFS be added to both Internal and External Storage? I work a lot with .Net Framework software so it's kind of essential for me to have NTFS compatibility.

If I were to get Paragon to my mac. Will it help me to Install software like MySQL on the Internal Storage?

 

[yjchua95]

I will be dual booting my Mac. NTFS is needed to install MySQL and etc. So I would really want my Internal Storage to write NTFS as well. Any solution?

If you want to dual boot, use Boot Camp. The Windows side will be NTFS while the OS X side will remain as HFS+. Then that way, your internal storage will be NTFS (only on the Windows side though). So just install your SQL stuff on there.

You don't have to do any formatting. Boot Camp Assistant will handle that for you.

PS - I suggest the 512GB rMBP instead for storage flexibility.

 

[AnJie x]

If you want to dual boot, use Boot Camp. The Windows side will be NTFS while the OS X side will remain as HFS+. Then that way, your internal storage will be NTFS (only on the Windows side though). So just install your SQL stuff on there.

You don't have to do any formatting. Boot Camp Assistant will handle that for you.

PS - I suggest the 512GB rMBP instead for storage flexibility.

Thanks alot man. I didn't know about that being settled by Boot Camp Assistant. Thanks again.

 

[yjchua95]

Thanks alot man. I didn't know about that being settled by Boot Camp Assistant. Thanks again.

Just make sure that you assign enough space to Windows from Boot Camp Assistant. You cannot resize it after installing Windows.

 

[maflynn]

If I were to get Paragon to my mac. Will it help me to Install software like MySQL on the Internal Storage?

NTFS by paragon was what I was thinking when I replied. You'll need that on OS X to give you full NTFS read/write ability.

But as others mentioned, OS X will still need to be HFS+, you'll partition the drive via bootcamp, one portion will be NTFS for windows, the other HFS+ for OS X. When you're in OS X and you need NTFS read/write ability (either for the internal drive or external) then you'll need Paragon's software.

 

[AnJie x]

Just make sure that you assign enough space to Windows from Boot Camp Assistant. You cannot resize it after installing Windows.

Oh alright. Thanks a lot. I guess somewhere around 100 GB would do my job since I got a 1 TB Seagate External which includes a free NTFS driver for Mac.

 

[AnJie x]

NTFS by paragon was what I was thinking when I replied. You'll need that on OS X to give you full NTFS read/write ability.

But as others mentioned, OS X will still need to be HFS+, you'll partition the drive via bootcamp, one portion will be NTFS for windows, the other HFS+ for OS X. When you're in OS X and you need NTFS read/write ability (either for the internal drive or external) then you'll need Paragon's software.

I guess I probably must buy Paragon since most of my friends flash storages are NTFS. Thanks.

 

[yjchua95]

I guess I probably must buy Paragon since most of my friends flash storages are NTFS. Thanks.

This is why I always use ExFAT - easy interoperability between OSes without the daft restrictions of FAT32.

 

[maflynn]

This is why I always use ExFAT - easy interoperability between OSes without the daft restrictions of FAT32.

That's what I do as well. While the software works well enough, exFAT is a better cheaper alternative imo.