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MPB 2nd hdd. Which partition format?

S

sneak3

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 14, 2011
538
80
Hi there!

Im about to install a second hdd in my mbp 2012 and I was wondering how I should format it so I can use both windows and osx.

The 1st drive has windows via bootcamp and osx. But for the second drive, I just wanted to be able to access the data from both OS, since Ill not store programs there but files only.

Should I go with exFat?
 
sneak3 said:
Hi there!

Im about to install a second hdd in my mbp 2012 and I was wondering how I should format it so I can use both windows and osx.

The 1st drive has windows via bootcamp and osx. But for the second drive, I just wanted to be able to access the data from both OS, since Ill not store programs there but files only.

Should I go with exFat?
Click to expand...

You should use exFAT, however, if you are running bootcamp, bootcamp installs the drivers required for windows to read and write to HFS+ formated drives. If that is the case, then I would format it to HFS+ and give it a go. If not, go to exFAT.
 
Lord Xeb said:
You should use exFAT, however, if you are running bootcamp, bootcamp installs the drivers required for windows to read and write to HFS+ formated drives. If that is the case, then I would format it to HFS+ and give it a go. If not, go to exFAT.
Click to expand...

Hmm so both should work. But which one is better?
 
Lord Xeb said:
You should use exFAT, however, if you are running bootcamp, bootcamp installs the drivers required for windows to read and write to HFS+ formated drives.
Click to expand...

The Windows support software only provides read access to HFS+. The only way it can write is if you're accessing an HFS+ drive connected to an Airport Extreme or Time Capsule. As with writing to an NTFS drive in OS X, you need 3rd-party software to write to HFS+ in Windows.

You can use exFAT as a "native" solution. If you go this route, do not format the drive using Disk Utility in OS X. Format the partition in Windows, selecting exFAT and using a cluster size of 1024. This helps avoid data corruption that can occur when copying large files to an exFAT partition in OS X.
 
saturnotaku said:
The Windows support software only provides read access to HFS+. The only way it can write is if you're accessing an HFS+ drive connected to an Airport Extreme or Time Capsule. As with writing to an NTFS drive in OS X, you need 3rd-party software to write to HFS+ in Windows.

You can use exFAT as a "native" solution. If you go this route, do not format the drive using Disk Utility in OS X. Format the partition in Windows, selecting exFAT and using a cluster size of 1024. This helps avoid data corruption that can occur when copying large files to an exFAT partition in OS X.
Click to expand...

Hm... I learned something new :D Kudos
 
If you just want to be able to have basic access from Windows then go with HFS+ and use the drivers made by Apple for Windows for this very situation.
 
saturnotaku said:
The Windows support software only provides read access to HFS+. The only way it can write is if you're accessing an HFS+ drive connected to an Airport Extreme or Time Capsule. As with writing to an NTFS drive in OS X, you need 3rd-party software to write to HFS+ in Windows.

You can use exFAT as a "native" solution. If you go this route, do not format the drive using Disk Utility in OS X. Format the partition in Windows, selecting exFAT and using a cluster size of 1024. This helps avoid data corruption that can occur when copying large files to an exFAT partition in OS X.
Click to expand...

Alright, so If I want a seamless experience, like everything was just one OS, I should go with exfat formatted by windows, cluster 1024. Is that it? Will I be missing something?
 
if you want to get to the windows data from within osx then you can just go ntfs for the windows drive and use macfuse in osx to read / write to it.

Cheers,
 
Guys wait, why are you telling me to go hfs+ or even ntfs if exfat is fine? Why would I go through the hassle of installing other programs when apparently I can just naturally use exfat?
 
i just find it handy to have fuse installed in case i ever plug an external drive in that`s ntfs, nice, easy and not an issue but exfat is fine anyway. They are just suggestions. Options are always good ;)

Cheers,
 
saturnotaku said:
The Windows support software only provides read access to HFS+. The only way it can write is if you're accessing an HFS+ drive connected to an Airport Extreme or Time Capsule. As with writing to an NTFS drive in OS X, you need 3rd-party software to write to HFS+ in Windows.

You can use exFAT as a "native" solution. If you go this route, do not format the drive using Disk Utility in OS X. Format the partition in Windows, selecting exFAT and using a cluster size of 1024. This helps avoid data corruption that can occur when copying large files to an exFAT partition in OS X.
Click to expand...

Hey, just one more thing: the cluster file size should be 1024 bytes or kilobytes?

ALSO, should I format my flash drives (8gb, 16gb) the same way or in this case I could leave it to "default size"?
 
Just use default size. I don't see how a smaller block size should help anything. Default is 4KB and that is what HDDs usually want. Anything else need some funky emulation.
On a big file the difference between 1kB and 4kB won't matter. Just more overhead and worse performance.
 
dusk007 said:
Just use default size. I don't see how a smaller block size should help anything. Default is 4KB and that is what HDDs usually want. Anything else need some funky emulation.
On a big file the difference between 1kB and 4kB won't matter. Just more overhead and worse performance.
Click to expand...

now are you referring to the hdd partition or the flash drives?
 
Both.
HDD's since they moved to 4k formatting expect 4kB and nand flash of the last years usually has 4kB page sizes.
Even if you would format to something lower the nand doesn't actually understand how to write anything smaller than 4096 Bytes at once. It is just pointless to set anything smaller. Old Flash sticks used 2KB but I think none today still do.
An HDD is the same it is optimzed to work with 4KB chunks of data. If you give it something smaller it just pretends that it can handle that. It is not optimal and only because of some old operating systems they can even still do that.
Smaller clusters than 4kB really serve no purpose. Bigger doesn't really help either though.
 
Last edited:
dusk007 said:
Both.
HDD's since they moved to 4k formatting expect 4kB and nand flash of the last years usually has 4kB page sizes.
Even if you would format to something lower the nand doesn't actually understand how to write anything smaller than 4096 Bytes at once. It is just pointless to set anything smaller. Old Flash sticks used 2KB but I think none today still do.
An HDD is the same it is optimzed to work with 4KB chunks of data. If you give it something smaller it just pretends that it can handle that. It is not optimal and only because of some old operating systems they can even still do that.
Smaller clusters than 4kB really serve no purpose. Bigger doesn't really help either though.
Click to expand...

Alright. Thanks! So I shouldnt worry at all about this?

Format the partition in Windows, selecting exFAT and using a cluster size of 1024. This helps avoid data corruption that can occur when copying large files to an exFAT partition in OS X.
Click to expand...
 
No it is nonsense. exFAT has always the risk of data corruption (that is why there TexFAT) when transferring large files but 1kB clusters won't let that problem magically disappear. Unless one considers 4kb big files "large". ;)

But really you that isn't a problem with just an internal data drive. Even if a problem pops up on a large transfer. Just redo it and repair the FAT. In most cases the OS will do that byitself or recommend doing it. Don't bother.
 
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