Should I Reformat External HD?

[Melodeath]

I just bought a Seagate Backup Plus 4TB drive for backing up some external drives I have. I already have a 1.5TB Western Digital drive I use with Time Machine that backs up my MBP's internal HD, but my externals are not included in Time Machine.

Since I don't think you can use Time Machine with different settings for different backup drives, I'm thinking of using Carbon Copy Cloner for backing up my externals to the new 4TB drive.

The Seagate 4TB comes as an NTFS drive, with an NTFS driver to work with Mac. So my mac can read and write from the drive even though it is NTFS.

Do you think I should reformat the drive as HFS before I use CCC, or just leave the drive as is since it seems to work right out of the box with both Mac and PC? Are there benefits to reformatting to HFS? If I don't reformat, I will be able to use the drive with Windows and Mac, which seems like a benefit, but I don't know if I'm missing something due to ignorance. Also, I'm worried that reformatting to HFS will delete the pre-loaded NTFS mac driver if I ever decide to go back to NTFS.

Secondly, do you think I should I install the Seagate Dashboard software? I think I saw a video where the actual Backup portion of the software called Protect does not even work with Mac...

Thanks a lot! By the way, I'm on OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

 

[justperry]

CCC does not backup to NTFS AFAIK.

If you don't use the disk with windows just reformat it, and where is the driver, if it is on the disk just copy it to your mac and keep it there for later.

 

[Melodeath]

CCC does not backup to NTFS AFAIK.

If you don't use the disk with windows just reformat it, and where is the driver, if it is on the disk just copy it to your mac and keep it there for later.

Interesting. I wondered if CCC might not work, even though there is an NTFS driver.

I'm not sure where the driver is. On the drive is a Seagate folder, which only contains an XML file for registration, and there is a video folder with tutorials/info.

EDIT: Although i can search the drive, which lead me to believe I can write to it, since I thought Finder had to write a hidden file to search NTFS drive, it doesn't appear that I can copy files to the drive. Maybe the driver does not get installed unless you install the Seagate Dashboard?

 

[justperry]

Interesting. I wondered if CCC might not work, even though there is an NTFS driver.

I'm not sure where the driver is. On the drive is a Seagate folder, which only contains an XML file for registration, and there is a video folder with tutorials/info.

What is the driver, Paragon, if so you probably have to download it and then use the XML contents (Serial) to register, so just keep the file and you're OK, I would recommend you to download the Driver now though, it could be updated and then the serial might not work, also recommend you to just install the driver, it won't use much resources if any and register it.

 

[robvas]

Reformat.

 

[snaky69]

Interesting. I wondered if CCC might not work, even though there is an NTFS driver.

I'm not sure where the driver is. On the drive is a Seagate folder, which only contains an XML file for registration, and there is a video folder with tutorials/info.

EDIT: Although i can search the drive, which lead me to believe I can write to it, since I thought Finder had to write a hidden file to search NTFS drive, it doesn't appear that I can copy files to the drive. Maybe the driver does not get installed unless you install the Seagate Dashboard?

Macs can READ NTFS, not WRITE to it. You need a third party program such as Paragon or NTFS-3G to do so.

Time machine will not backup to a NTFS drive period, so I guess that solves your issue.

 

[Melodeath]

I know Macs can read NTFS and not write. But I remember I had an NTFS drive that I could not search on with my Mac until I reformatted to HFS. Which is odd because I can search on this new Seagate, but not write to it. I am going to do Live Chat with Seagate, but perhaps the driver is not installed until you install Seagate Dashboard? Either way I'm confused why/how I can search, but not write.

I am not planning to use Time Machine, as I mentioned in the OP. I do not know if Carbon Copy Cleaner will work with NTFS if there is an NTFS driver. I do not know if the driver is Paragon or not. Seagate doesn't seem to mention specifically who makes the driver.

 

[justperry]

I know Macs can read NTFS and not write. But I remember I had an NTFS drive that I could not search on with my Mac until I reformatted to HFS. Which is odd because I can search on this new Seagate, but not write to it. I am going to do Live Chat with Seagate, but perhaps the driver is not installed until you install Seagate Dashboard? Either way I'm confused why/how I can search, but not write.

I am not planning to use Time Machine, as I mentioned in the OP. I do not know if Carbon Copy Cleaner will work with NTFS if there is an NTFS driver. I do not know if the driver is Paragon or not. Seagate doesn't seem to mention specifically who makes the driver.

Right click on Seagate Dashboard and look inside the App/Installer, you might find it there.
If there's an installer called like paragon click on it and the installer opens.

Edit: I found the below screenshot, looks like a dog, click on it and what is inside, if there is an App/Installer right click on it and look what is inside, there is also a program to look what is inside an installer called pacifist.

Edit Again: It's Paragon, see screenshot.

NTFS Driver For Mac