Partitioning an Ext. HDD for OSX + PS3

[~Shard~]

I am going to buy a new external HDD for backing up my Mac. I would also like to use this drive as an external HDD for my PS3.

Am I right in thinking I simply have to partition part of the drive as HFS for my OS X backing up needs, and partition the other part of the HDD as FAT32 to house content for my PS3? If so, can the partitioning be done in OS X, Windows, both or either? Does it matter?

Also, my understanding is that FAT32 can only handle partitions up to 32GB, and that NTFS won't be recognized by a PS3, hence the need to use FAT32 in this case. Are there any tools out there (I guess Windows-based?) which can create a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB which will still function properly?

Any help would be appreciated - thanks!

 

[stainlessliquid]

32gb is a Windows limitation, fat32 can do partitions much larger which is why the PS3 can have 40 and 80gb drives without problems like running out of space on one partition. Im sure any linux friendly partition tool can make 32gb+ partitions in fat32, even disk utility might do it. Outside of windows the only real limitation of fat32 is the crappy 4gb file limit.

 

[~Shard~]

32gb is a Windows limitation, fat32 can do partitions much larger which is why the PS3 can have 40 and 80gb drives without problems like running out of space on one partition. Im sure any linux friendly partition tool can make 32gb+ partitions in fat32, even disk utility might do it. Outside of windows the only real limitation of fat32 is the crappy 4gb file limit.

Thanks for the info, I appreciate it. I never even thought of checking Disk Utility to see if it could create FAT32 partitions, so I'll look into that. Otherwise, I'll see if I can find any Windows partitioning tools which could do the job as well, as I don't have Linux.

No files over 4 GB sucks though - what would you recommend I do for DVDs I have backed up which are over this limit which I would like to watch on my new HDTV via my PS3? Or is compressing the crap out of them (and thus degrading the quality) my only option?

 

[7on]

Disk Utility in OSX can do larger than 32gb FAT32 drives. I think the limit is 128GB? maybe?

 

[7on]

Thanks for the info, I appreciate it. I never even thought of checking Disk Utility to see if it could create FAT32 partitions, so I'll look into that. Otherwise, I'll see if I can find any Windows partitioning tools which could do the job as well, as I don't have Linux.

No files over 4 GB sucks though - what would you recommend I do for DVDs I have backed up which are over this limit which I would like to watch on my new HDTV via my PS3? Or is compressing the crap out of them (and thus degrading the quality) my only option?

Will folders work? DVDs are rarely made of one large vob. Most of the files are 1GB or less. If you can play a VIDEO_TS folder that'd be great.

 

[~Shard~]

Thanks for the info, I appreciate it! I'll look into the VOB / VIDEO_TS possibility, but I'm not sure if it will be an option.... regardless, thanks again.

 

[~Shard~]

Kay, so I just found MediaLink - would this be another viable option? I'll do some more research on it here on MR and elsewhere, but for starters looks like it might be a slick solution....