USB Hard Drive for use with Netgear Router and mac and pc

[willie45]

Hi

I bought a Seagate 1TB USB HDD from Amazon. It says works with windows on the box but I wanted to use it to store and share files over my network via the readyshare feature on my Netgear router.

Is it not possible to use this product with a mac? Are there any recommendations as to HDDs suitable for my purpose?

Thanks

 

[Creative One]

Pretty much any USB hard drive will work with a Mac. Those days are long over when you need a special type of hard drives work with a Mac. But finishing plug-in the new hard drive it should show up in desktop, then you can go ahead and start storing files on.

Congrats and I hope you enjoy your new hard drive.

 

[gsahli]

I believe the issue is drivers. The router came with software for the PC, but not the Mac, right?
Airport Extreme has Apple software (firmware) built-in to provide USB hard drive connection ability.

 

[willie45]

Thanks Webers I was a bit puzzled to read on the box the suggestion that it would only work with windows, so you have put my mind at reast.

Gsahil, not the router installed perfectly well on my mac and the issue was really just the Seagate hard drive, which as I said seemed to suggest it would only work with Windows.

Thanks again folks

Willie

 

[lucifiel]

the issue has more to do with file systems rather than drivers.

essentially, the mac should be able to see (subject of course to the wireless gods) the harddrive, but as it is 'designned to work with windows' this has the implication that it will be formatted for as NTFS rather than Mac OSX's HFS (or whatever the hell it's called).

OSX can read NTFS, but writing to NTFS requires a bit of jiggling with SL settings, and is impossible in Leopard absent third party software such as Mac Fuse.

The utility of said software is questionable and issues do arise, such as write speeds, but it's all a little academic when it's networked.

The solution? Keep the formatting, and do the required jiggling. If you don't need to write to the HDD on your Mac, then the problem evaporates.

 

[willie45]

Ah. Now I am slightly concerned. I don't really understand how to make my mac write to the NTFS I'm afraid. Would it be possible to reformat the drive using Disk Utility to make it easier?

Also what is SL?

thanks

Willie

 

[lucifiel]

Ah. Now I am slightly concerned. I don't really understand how to make my mac write to the NTFS I'm afraid. Would it be possible to reformat the drive using Disk Utility to make it easier?

Also what is SL?

thanks

Willie

SL is snow leopard.

if you reformat the drive to HFS then Windows can't read or write to it absent 3rd party software.

there are instructions somewhere on this forum, give it a search.

failing that, try MacFuse, liek I said, it's free and it works. It's just a tad slow. But unless you intend to write 50 gigs at once or something (which I used to do anyways copying and pasting big chunks of media files) it's barely noticeable.

In short, if it's like a media server or something, just install MacFuse and things should be ok. If you want to run an OS off it, not so good, though running an OS off a networked drive would be impressive. Albeit stupid.

 

[willie45]

Doh! SL was pretty obvious. Sorry, past my bedtime I guess I don't have SL just L at the moment.

Would FAT 32 work for both computers? Maybe not a good solution if the MacFuse will work better.

Anyway thanks for your help. I will install the drive and use Macfuse as you suggest.

Thanks again

Willie

 

[lucifiel]

Yes, that is possible, though I think the newer Windows may not allow Fat32 to be used.

Furthermore, Fat32 has the whole 4 gig filesize limit, which is pretty crap.

Try macfuse, it's free and should serve you well enough.

Best of luck, if you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask.

 

[willie45]

Thanks for your help. Much appreciated

Willie