WD 500GB My Passport Essential vs. Mac HD

[Schmoyer]

I noticed Western Digital sells two variants of their 500GB external HD. One labeled Mac, which requires a Mac and their regular passport essential which claims to work on both a Mac and PC. The Mac version is $10 more expsensive. I was hoping someone could point out the major differences and if this $10 price difference is worth purchasing the Mac drive. I linked both products below.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9258876&type=product&id=1218070096126

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8993164&type=product&id=1218007082970

Thanks!

 

[MacDawg]

I would say the one labeled "Mac" comes pre-formatted as HFS+ for Mac as stated

You will just have to format the other drive, which is no problem with Disk Utility

You can read up on the file systems here

Woof, Woof - Dawg

 

[Schmoyer]

If I bought the regular Passport and didn't format it for a Mac, leaving it NTFS, would my Mac be able to read/store from/to it? I use a flash drive on my Mac now that's formatted for a PC.... It works just fine.

The only reason I ask is because I want to connect the external to a Xbox 360, which I know reads the memory stick. Would the Xbox read the HFS+?

Thanks again

 

[uberamd]

If I bought the regular Passport and didn't format it for a Mac, leaving it NTFS, would my Mac be able to read/store from/to it? I use a flash drive on my Mac now that's formatted for a PC.... It works just fine.

The only reason I ask is because I want to connect the external to a Xbox 360, which I know reads the memory stick. Would the Xbox read the HFS+?

Thanks again

It can read it but not write to it without additional software.

 

[Schmoyer]

Hmm... I can read and write to my memory stick... Are flash drives different? Or were you referring to the Xbox being able to only read the HD formatted HFS+?

 

[uberamd]

Hmm... I can read and write to my memory stick... Are flash drives different? Or were you referring to the Xbox being able to only read the HD formatted HFS+?

Flash drives are formatted as FAT. OS X can read NTFS, but to write you need something like http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/ or http://www.lifehack.org/articles/li...write-ntfs-windows-partition-on-mac-os-x.html

 

[Schmoyer]

Simple enough, thanks for all the help.

Does anyone know if an Xbox 360 can read an HFS+ formatted drive?

 

[Maccleduff]

Simple enough, thanks for all the help.

Does anyone know if an Xbox 360 can read an HFS+ formatted drive?

Yep, the xbox can read an external usb hard drive formatted to HFS+.