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The New MacBook Air-My first Mac

J

Jumpman6

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 26, 2010
39
9
Durham, NC
Long time lurker, first time poster.

This evening, I'll finally leave the PC world behind and enter the Apple family with the purchase of a MacBook Air (just haven't decided which size yet...).

My question to the more informed is this; I have 80gigs worth of iTunes media, my pictures, and my documents all on a 2TB external hard drive.

Will said external hard drive be recognized by the Mac and thus run my iTunes media?

If not, I'd like some suggestions because I will not run nor store my media, pictures, or documents on the Air's storage.

Thanks a lot.
 
Yes, the Mac can read an external drive formatted for Windows. It can't natively write to a drive formatted as NTFS, though (only FAT 32). There are utilities you can download to enable writing to NTFS.
 
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What do you mean by "write"?
 
Jumpman6 said:
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What do you mean by "write"?
Click to expand...

If you downloaded a movie on your MBA you wouldn't be able to move it to the external.
 
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Okay then. How then do I move my content from a PC external HDD to a Mac formatted external HDD?
 
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Couldn't I just get a Mac formatted external HDD, plug it to my PC, transfer everything over, then hook that to the Air?
 
Jumpman6 said:
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Couldn't I just get a Mac formatted external HDD, plug it to my PC, transfer everything over, then hook that to the Air?
Click to expand...

Yes no problem
 
Jumpman6 said:
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Couldn't I just get a Mac formatted external HDD, plug it to my PC, transfer everything over, then hook that to the Air?
Click to expand...

No, if it's "mac-formatted", that means it's HFS+, which Windows can't read and write to. What you need is an external usb drive formatted in FAT32. That's the only file format that can be read and written to natively by both OS's. It has some file size limitations though.

You can use Disk Utility in OS X or windows format and format any disk into FAT32.
 
Stupid me, I just actually checked and my external hard drive is already formatted in FAT 32.

And I just checked about the file limitations. A file size of 4 gigs is the max. Correct?
 
Jumpman6 said:
Stupid me, I just actually checked and my external hard drive is already formatted in FAT 32.

And I just checked about the file limitations. A file size of 4 gigs is the max. Correct?
Click to expand...

2GB is the max for FAT32.
 
I see his drive is FAT formatted, however if it wasn't, what he could have done was connect his Mac and PC through a network. Then with the PC formatted drive connected to the PC and the Mac formatted drive connected to the Mac he could transfer the files across the network. This would take a while depending on the network speed, but is certainly doable. I think his initial post said there were 80GB of data which would take about 3.5 hours with a 50Mb throughput or probably one full night over wi-fi.
 
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Well, between pictures, music, and movies, I have a few digital copies over 2 gigs.
 
Well, checked a few more places and it says 4gigs is the max file size for FAT 32...in which case I only have one file that size.

All the same, thanks for the responses. I'm going with the 13' Macbook Air.

My long nightmare is over...
 
Congratulations on your new MacBook Air purchase! I'm sure you will fall in love with the machine once you get it in your hands.

You should have no problem transferring your data, plug it in and start using your data.

What I like to do is have a HFS+ partition on my external in case I ever need to transfer files that are bigger than 4GB's. Disk Utility (In your Utilities folder) allows you to resize partition without having to erase data.
 
Eclipse278 said:
No, if it's "mac-formatted", that means it's HFS+, which Windows can't read and write to. What you need is an external usb drive formatted in FAT32. That's the only file format that can be read and written to natively by both OS's. It has some file size limitations though.

You can use Disk Utility in OS X or windows format and format any disk into FAT32.
Click to expand...

Of course, the nice thing is the Air has 2 USB ports now, so you can plug both into the Mac.
 
Jumpman6 said:
Well, checked a few more places and it says 4gigs is the max file size for FAT 32...in which case I only have one file that size.

All the same, thanks for the responses. I'm going with the 13' Macbook Air.

My long nightmare is over...
Click to expand...

Nice. That's the one I'm ordering, too. Do you plan to run Windows on it (using Boot Camp)? If so, I'd suggest going for the 4GB version.
 
No. Will not be running Windows on it. I'll run Microsoft Office...and that's only for my wife.

I'm completely switching over.
 
Ok so wait....

I have a 500GB external hard drive that I use for backups and to just store things I don't want on my laptop full time. From what posters here are saying I can't use that drive with the new MBA? I have to buy a different drive to use it with the MBA?
 
Loonytik said:
I have a 500GB external hard drive that I use for backups and to just store things I don't want on my laptop full time. From what posters here are saying I can't use that drive with the new MBA? I have to buy a different drive to use it with the MBA?
Click to expand...

Are you switching from Windows to Mac?

If you aren't then no, if you are then you have 3 options to choose from...
 
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