Networking and sharing and external drive between PCs and MAC?

[NJRonbo]

Hello everyone!

I have talked my Union into buying an iMac
to replace their old PC.

They are very interested but have some
legitimate concerns that I told them I
would research and obtains answers through
this forum.

The first concern is networking. Is it easy
to network a PC and MAC so that they talk
to each other?

Second concerns sharing an external hard
drive.

I know that both Windows and Mac require
an external drive to be formatted to their
specs. For instance, Mac Journal vs. NTFCS
(if I remember the Windows format correctly).

So, can they both share an external drive
hooked to a network? And by what I mean
"share" is to read, write and save with either
computer so the other is able to retrieve and
do the same.

Really appreciate the help. It will be very
useful to convincing my Union to go MAC.

 

[spinnerlys]

1. Sharing is relatively easy. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2959
When Macs and PCs are on the same network and File Sharing is enabled on both platforms, they will either see each other or can be directly connected via their IP addresses. But beware, that sometimes due to incorrect configuration, connections might be not as easy to establish.

2. Mac OS X uses HFS+ (called Mac OS Extended in Disk Utility) as a file system, and can be read and written to only by Mac OSX or by Windows via MacDrive.
Windows uses NTFS (or sometimes FAT32, which can be read and written to by Windows and Mac OS X) as its file system, which can be read by Windows and Mac OS X and written to by Windows. Mac OS X need MacFuse + NTFS-3g to write to NTFS formatted volumes.

While in a network, file systems don't matter that much, as SMB is used as an abstraction layer and network protocol by both OSs to read an write to their counterpart's file systems.

 

[NJRonbo]

Spinnerlys,

Thank you so much.

Looks like the hurdle is cleared in buying an iMac.

 

[NJRonbo]

Actually, reading over your reply again...

MacFuse + NTFS-3g to write to NTFS formatted volumes

Could you explain what this is?

So, I take it, there is not an initial simple
solution for a PC and MAC to read and write
to the same drive without additional help?

 

[spinnerlys]

Actually, reading over your reply again...



Could you explain what this is?

So, I take it, there is not an initial simple
solution for a PC and MAC to read and write
to the same drive without additional help?

Windows uses NTFS and FAT32 as its file system, which can be read and written to by Windows.
FAT32 can be also read and written to by Mac OS X and NTFS can only be read by Mac OS X.

In order for Mac OS X to write to NTFS formatted volumes, one needs MacFuse and NTFS-3 are free solutions (used together) to enable Mac OS X write to NTFS formatted volumes.

But all this comes void over a network, as networks use their own protocol to write to whatever file system they like.


And btw, FAT32 is the simple solution, with the exception, that FAT32 is not able to store files with the size of 4GB and above.