Mini M4 External SSD Data Transfer Issue

[DrRon]

After 20 years using Windows I just bought a new Mini M4 !
I also bought an OWC 4 TB External SSD connected by one of the Thunderbolt ports.
I created a 1 TB partition on the SSD formated as ExFat .

I have a lifetime of photography files on an external hard drive used with Windows on a 1 TB partition formated as NTFS.
I am connecting that hard drive via a dock into the Mini's front USB 3 port.

I can see the files on the Windows external hard drive fine but when I try to copy them to the SSD ExFat partition I get an error code 50.
Why can I read them but not write them?

Any ideas?

 

[Bigwaff]

I created a 1 TB partition on the SSD formated as ExFat .

Using Disk Utility on the mini, yes? Open Disk Utility and select menu View > Show All Devices. Post screenshot. Select the ExFAT partition (or volume) and press the "i" button in the top right corner. Post screenshot or paste the contents.

 

[bzgnyc2]

After 20 years using Windows I just bought a new Mini M4 !
I also bought an OWC 4 TB External SSD connected by one of the Thunderbolt ports.
I created a 1 TB partition on the SSD formated as ExFat .

I have a lifetime of photography files on an external hard drive used with Windows on a 1 TB partition formated as NTFS.
I am connecting that hard drive via a dock into the Mini's front USB 3 port.

I can see the files on the Windows external hard drive fine but when I try to copy them to the SSD ExFat partition I get an error code 50.
Why can I read them but not write them?

Any ideas?

Two questions:
1) Is there any particular reason why you formatted your new SSD as ExFAT rather than APFS?
2) Could there be files with filenames on the NTFS disk drive that are not compatible with ExFAT?

 

[haralds]

I know the OWC 4 TB External SSD is supposed to support USB, but could there be an issue. Try I on one of the TB4 ports in the back.

 

[haralds]

Two questions:
1) Is there any particular reason why you formatted your new SSD as ExFAT rather than APFS?
2) Could there be files with filenames on the NTFS disk drive that are not compatible with ExFAT?

I imagine he did that because the PC does not support APFS without 3rd party utilities.

 

[chabig]

Congrats on the new Mac! I would forget about partitions. Just format the whole drive as a single APFS volume. Copy the photos into a folder. Partitions offer no real benefits in APFS. I suspect something is wrong with the partition you created, and eliminating that as a cause might just fix your problem.

 

[giffut]

Get the NTFS plugin from Paragon for MacOS, if you need the drive be interchangable with Windows. If not, do as told before and format it in APFS. SSDs should always be formattet in APFS.

Don't ever use ExFAT under MacOS, you are prone to data failures at any moment, which sometimes cannot be remedied even when using special software on Windows.

 

[bzgnyc2]

I imagine he did that because the PC does not support APFS without 3rd party utilities.

Agree though I wanted to confirm he still needed this SSD to go back and forth to Windows and not assume. If so he'll have to make some tradeoffs. If Windows compatibility is not just for a PC he controls, then he's limited to ExFAT and NTFS. The former not ideal for library/archive stoage and the latter requiring he install 3rd party utilities on his Mac. However, if picking ExFAT was just out of habit or retaining a just-in-case option, going all APFS on the SSD might streamline his migration.

 

[DrRon]

Two questions:
1) Is there any particular reason why you formatted your new SSD as ExFAT rather than APFS?
2) Could there be files with filenames on the NTFS disk drive that are not compatible with ExFAT?

I spent an hour screen sharing with Apple Support partitioning the new SSD 4 TB drive. They advised ExFat format was required to be compatible with the Windows NTFS data files format. But the thought of files on the Windows NTFS HD not compatible with ExFat is a good thought. The thought of manually going through 1 TB of data by trial and error is just un-doable. Maybe there's a software appliction out there?

 

[DrRon]

Congrats on the new Mac! I would forget about partitions. Just format the whole drive as a single APFS volume. Copy the photos into a folder. Partitions offer no real benefits in APFS. I suspect something is wrong with the partition you created, and eliminating that as a cause might just fix your problem.

Probably right. I have a Time Machine partition as APFS and a spare partition as AFPS. I'm scared to reformat the whole SSD

 

[DrRon]

Get the NTFS plugin from Paragon for MacOS, if you need the drive be interchangable with Windows. If not, do as told before and format it in APFS. SSDs should always be formattet in APFS.

Don't ever use ExFAT under MacOS, you are prone to data failures at any moment, which sometimes cannot be remedied even when using special software on Windows.

I'll look at that plugin suggestion. The ExFat formating of the partiton for the photo files was done by Apple Support to make it compatible with the WindowS NTFS data.

 

[DrRon]

Agree though I wanted to confirm he still needed this SSD to go back and forth to Windows and not assume. If so he'll have to make some tradeoffs. If Windows compatibility is not just for a PC he controls, then he's limited to ExFAT and NTFS. The former not ideal for library/archive stoage and the latter requiring he install 3rd party utilities on his Mac. However, if picking ExFAT was just out of habit or retaining a just-in-case option, going all APFS on the SSD might streamline his migration.

Again, the NTFS HD is an external unit from my Windows PC. I want to transfer 20 years of data to the OWC SSD before it dies. Once transferred I'll never need to go to the Windows HD again.
ExFat was chosen by Apple Support originally setting up the SSD for compatibility with the NTFS data.

 

[bzgnyc2]

I spent an hour screen sharing with Apple Support partitioning the new SSD 4 TB drive. They advised ExFat format was required to be compatible with the Windows NTFS data files format.

Not sure I follow their thinking. Both ExFAT and NTFS are DOS/Windows-native formats but NTFS is a more sophisticated format that can store files using functionality not present in ExFAT. That's not common though.

But the thought of files on the Windows NTFS HD not compatible with ExFat is a good thought. The thought of manually going through 1 TB of data by trial and error is just un-doable. Maybe there's a software appliction out there?

There probably are but things I might just try first if possible:
-Even if just temporary, can you copy all the files from the NTFS drive to an APFS filesystem (e.g. the Mac's desktop) to make sure the Mac is reading the entire NTFS filesystem without error and can create corresponding file/folder structures in its native format?

-If your Windows machine working well enough that you could try copying the NTFS drive over to the ExFAT-formatted SSD? Even though you new Mac should be able to accomplish the same thing, this really should work without error if there's nothing wrong with the NTFS filesystem/drive.

 

[G5isAlive]

I'll look at that plugin suggestion. The ExFat formating of the partiton for the photo files was done by Apple Support to make it compatible with the WindowS NTFS data.

Is it possible Apple was confused on your partition requirement, thinking you wanted to connect it to a windows machine as well as a Mac? That’s when i use ex fat.. for drive compatibility between windows and Mac machines, not individual files.

You say photos but not what format they are in. JPEG? Raw? I know that I have some 2006 .mov files that I can ‘see’ listed on my hard drives, I get a file pic etc., but when I click to use the file I get an error message. I use different software and then I can open the file successfully. I would email yourself one file so disk format shouldn’t matter and then save to an APFS drive and see what happens. Not suggesting this as an answer but as a diagnostic.

 

[Bigwaff]

Again, the NTFS HD is an external unit from my Windows PC. I want to transfer 20 years of data to the OWC SSD before it dies. Once transferred I'll never need to go to the Windows HD again.
ExFat was chosen by Apple Support originally setting up the SSD for compatibility with the NTFS data.

Paragon NTFS is $30! Then you can connect your external NTFS HD to your Mac and connect your OWC SSD APFS (or format OWC SSD NTFS) to your Mac... and away you go. That price is pretty cheap for peace of mind when copying your valuable data.

 

[OWC_TAL]

You should look into MacDrive. It has a much much better APFS implementation that the other software being mentioned. Full APFS features where the other software does not.

And avoid ExFat at all costs. It is not a modern file system and does not offer modern file system protections. It should only be used for camera cards or shuttling media. It should not be used for active storage of media.

 

[Bigwaff]

You should look into MacDrive. It has a much much better APFS implementation that the other software being mentioned. Full APFS features where the other software does not.

MacDrive is APFS for Windows. Paragon NTFS is NTFS for Mac. Entirely different, but same results !!