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Portable hard drive

Z

zdlyons

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 30, 2010
64
0
I am looking to buy a 1 terabyte portable hard drive to store my media projects / extra media files on. I need something that can transfer back and forth between Mac and PC, PC and Mac. What suggestions do you have? What has worked well for you?
Any and all information would be helpful. Thanks!
 
Any external hard drive will work with PCs or Macs, as long as the connectors are there (Firewire, USB, etc.) It doesn't matter how the drive is formatted out of the box, since you can re-format any way you like. Formatting in HFS (Mac OS Extended) or FAT32 or NTFS-3G can be done with the Mac OS X Disk Utility.

FAT32 (File Allocation Table)
  • Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
  • Maximum file size: 4GB.
  • Maximum volume size: 2TB
NTFS (Windows NT File System)
  • Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
  • Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
  • To Read/Write/Format NTFS from Mac OS X: Install NTFS-3G for Mac OS X (free)
  • Some have reported problems using Tuxera (approx 33USD).
  • Native NTFS support can be enabled in Snow Leopard, but is not advisable, due to instability.
  • AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support NTFS
  • Maximum file size: 16 TB
  • Maximum volume size: 256TB
HFS+ (Hierarchical File System, a.k.a. Mac OS Extended)
  • Read/Write HFS+ from native Mac OS X
  • Required for Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner backups of Mac internal hard drive.
  • To Read/Write HFS+ from Windows, Install MacDrive
  • To Read HFS+ (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer
  • Maximum file size: 8EiB
  • Maximum volume size: 8EiB
exFAT (FAT64)
  • Supported in Mac OS X only in 10.6.5 or later.
  • exFAT partitions created with OS X 10.6.5 are inaccessible from Windows 7
  • Not all Windows versions support exFAT. See disadvantages.
  • exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table)
  • AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support exFAT
  • Maximum file size: 16 EiB
  • Maximum volume size: 64 ZiB

If you want more information, here are just a few of many threads on this topic, found by searching the forum with MRoogle:

Mac Guide on External Hard Drives

[url=https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/904281/[/url]
[url=https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/899614/[/url]
[url=https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/883573/[/url]
[url=https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/875630/[/url]
[url=https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/861006/[/url]
[url=https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/824809/[/url]
[url=https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/849529/[/url]
[url=https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/847438/[/url]
[url=https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/834250/[/url]
... and many, many others.
 
GGJstudios said:
Any external hard drive will work with PCs or Macs, as long as the connectors are there (Firewire, USB, etc.) It doesn't matter how the drive is formatted out of the box, since you can re-format any way you like. Formatting in HFS (Mac OS Extended) or FAT32 or NTFS-3G can be done with the Mac OS X Disk Utility.

FAT32 (File Allocation Table)
  • Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
  • Maximum file size: 4GB.
  • Maximum volume size: 2TB
Click to expand...

so you're saying that as long as i get a hard drive that is smaller than 2 TB i can format it as FAT32 using Disk Utility.app (OS 10.6.6) to work with mac & pc and transfer files back and forth from mac & pc. Correct?
 
zdlyons said:
Maximum file size that can be stored on it? why is that? i have a back up hard drive for my mac that has files > 8gb on it that are playable...
Click to expand...

If you read the FAQ GGJstudios provided, only FAT32 has that 4GB limit, and that is because it is a very old file system and it can only store 2^32 - 1 bytes.
And as HFS+ is a bit more sophisticated than FAT32, it can store files bigger than 4GB.
 
simsaladimbamba said:
If you read the FAQ GGJstudios provided, only FAT32 has that 4GB limit, and that is because it is a very old file system and it can only store 2^32 - 1 bytes.
And as HFS+ is a bit more sophisticated than FAT32, it can store files bigger than 4GB.
Click to expand...

yeah but from the look of that faq, you cannot format the drive as NTFS using a mac or transfer files back and forth in ntfs between mac & pc :/
 
zdlyons said:
yeah but from the look of that faq, you cannot format the drive as NTFS using a mac or transfer files back and forth in ntfs between mac & pc :/
Click to expand...

You can, just not natively. You need NTFS-3G (link in FAQ) to be able to write to NTFS formatted volumes in Mac OS X, as Mac OS X is already capable of reading NTFS formatted volumes.
 
I have a basic WD "elements" 1TB drive I use for dumping media files. I chose to format it with exFAT and it works very well. The formatting overhead is minimal and worked fine with WinXP (have not tried with Win7). While I much prefer FireWire, the USB 2 performance isn't as bad as I anticipated.
 
simsaladimbamba said:
You can, just not natively. You need NTFS-3G (link in FAQ) to be able to write to NTFS formatted volumes in Mac OS X, as Mac OS X is already capable of reading NTFS formatted volumes.
Click to expand...

EDIT:
You're saying you would suggest formatting my 1tb hard drive as NTFS-3G in order to work with larger files between mac and pc?

Sedulous said:
I have a basic WD "elements" 1TB drive I use for dumping media files. I chose to format it with exFAT and it works very well. The formatting overhead is minimal and worked fine with WinXP (have not tried with Win7). While I much prefer FireWire, the USB 2 performance isn't as bad as I anticipated.
Click to expand...

thanks!
 
Last edited:
zdlyons said:
EDIT:
You're saying you would suggest formatting my 1tb hard drive as NTFS-3G in order to work with larger files between mac and pc?
Click to expand...
If you need to store files larger than 4GB, that eliminates FAT32 as an option.
If you need to share with any Windows computer, NTFS is your only choice.
If you share with only one or two Windows computers that you control, you can use NTFS or exFAT (note the limitations) or HFS+ (installing MacDrive on the PCs to read/write).
 
GGJstudios said:
If you need to store files larger than 4GB, that eliminates FAT32 as an option.
If you need to share with any Windows computer, NTFS is your only choice.
If you share with only one or two Windows computers that you control, you can use NTFS or exFAT (note the limitations) or HFS+ (installing MacDrive on the PCs to read/write).
Click to expand...

Hmm... does this work with usb thumb drives to for NTFS-3G? Because i formatted a 16G thumb drive for NTFS using the new NTFS-3G driver on my mac, and it it wouldn't open on windows. it said it needed formatted, then it said that it couldn't be formatted. :0
 
zdlyons said:
Hmm... does this work with usb thumb drives to for NTFS-3G? Because i formatted a 16G thumb drive for NTFS using the new NTFS-3G driver on my mac, and it it wouldn't open on windows. it said it needed formatted, then it said that it couldn't be formatted. :0
Click to expand...
It should work both ways. Reformat it with Windows and make sure you can read and write to it from the Mac.
 
Thinking about it, in this era, how is formatting still a compatibility issue?

Again, I don't know if the OP has settled on a choice, but exFAT works fine for me on Mac (R/W) and Windows XP (R/W). The only caveat is that Windows XP needed an update from Microsoft for it to work. From what I understand any Windows version XP or newer can work with exFAT. I don't use windows enough to have tried testing this claim. I definitely like that it has almost no overhead.
 
Sedulous said:
From what I understand any Windows version XP or newer can work with exFAT.
Click to expand...
From the link I posted earlier in this thread:
  • Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 users must have Service Pack 2 or later and install an update to support exFAT
  • Windows Vista must be Service Pack 1 or later for exFAT support
  • Devices formatted using exFAT cannot be read by any version of Windows prior to Windows XP or by any version of DOS or OS/2 (unless emulated as otherwise).
  • Windows Vista is unable to use exFAT drives for ReadyBoost. Windows 7 removes this limitation, enabling ReadyBoost caches larger than 4 GiB.
Click to expand...
 
I have a My Passport Studio 500gb. I know its made primarily for mac, but all these above features are possible with it too, right? Just a formatting thing?
 
zdlyons said:
I have a My Passport Studio 500gb. I know its made primarily for mac, but all these above features are possible with it too, right? Just a formatting thing?
Click to expand...

Yes, just a formatting thing. An HDD specially made for Mac is just a ploy to buy Mac OS Extended (HFS+) pre-formatted HDD. You can buy any USB or Firewire HDD out there and format it yourself.
 
simsaladimbamba said:
Yes, just a formatting thing. An HDD specially made for Mac is just a ploy to buy Mac OS Extended (HFS+) pre-formatted HDD. You can buy any USB or Firewire HDD out there and format it yourself.
Click to expand...

Cool thanks!

I had someone send me this link--looking for a good desktop back-up. http://goo.gl/zDuzv this will work well with time machine I am assuming

Also, what are the pros and cons of a desktop external hard drive for back-up vs. a portable external hard drive for back-up?
 
zdlyons said:
Cool thanks!

I had someone send me this link--looking for a good desktop back-up. http://goo.gl/zDuzv this will work well with time machine I am assuming
Click to expand...

Yep.
Guide on how to use Disk Utility from the restore / installation DVD.
Format Your Hard Drive Using Disk Utility
Partition Your Hard Drive With Disk Utility

Btw, you don't need to use shortened links, MR accepts them as long as they originally are.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...HS1_0TQ_1TB_DriveStation_Combo_4.html&EB=1239
 
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