WD My Book Essential Mac Compatible?

[JosephDuffy]

Hi,
I'm looking at a WD My Book Essential to backup my Mac and PC. I'll connect my Mac via USB 2, and PC via USB 3 (When I get a cheap PCI card).
It states on the website it's NTFS Formatted, so would need to be re-formatted to work on Mac.
However, I have Paragon NTFS installed on my Mac, which I believe is a driver for NTFS Drives.
So now my question is; Will I be able to use Time Machine to backup my Mac, and use the HDD to backup my PC? I'd also like to store a couple of misc. files on there, the odd movie etc, so can I make 2 or 3 partitions, so they don't "overlap".
I don't know how specific this will be to this HDD, so sorry if I'm too vague 🙂
Thanks,
Joseph Duffy

 

[alust2013]

You would have to make a separate partition formatted to HFS+ for Time Machine, but it should work fine for what you want.

 

[vnle]

You could do FAT32 if you want to see the files on both mac and windows.

 

[GGJstudios]

You could do FAT32 if you want to see the files on both mac and windows.

That won't work for Time Machine and FAT32 has a 4GB file size limitation that may be a problem.

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

 

[JosephDuffy]

So, if I use Mac to partition the drive, lets say 50:50.
I make the first half HFS+ (Mac OS Extended), and allocate that to Time Machine.
For the second half I make it NTFS. I can access this on Windows and Mac (After installing a driver), and I store music/movies on there, along with a backup of Windows using the supplied software.
Overall, that should work, right? 🙂
Thanks for the in-depth explanation, GGJstudios, helped a lot.
Thanks,
Joseph Duffy

 

[GGJstudios]

Overall, that should work, right? 🙂

Yes, that will work well.

 

[JosephDuffy]

Thanks for all the help guys ^_^
Once I get rid of my now-tiny 500GB Time Capsule, I'll be getting a new 2TB wonder 😀