What format for 'optibay' drive for both Win/OSX?

[MacsAreBetter\]

I have just installed a Data-doubler from OWC (will refer to it as optibay for ease-of-reading) and I've installed OSX and Windows on the SSD.

Now I've got a 750HDD that I want to put all my iTunes / games / files on. Problem; I want to use the hard-drive in both Windows and Mac. I know there's the obvious FAT32, but that can't house files bigger than 4GB.

I have heaps of .ISO games that I've ripped from disks over the years, and most are bigger than 4GB! Some as big as 10.

What would you guys recommend? Thanks so much.

 

[MacsAreBetter\]

Srsly, if I have to use FAT32 I'm going to roundhouse kick a baby.

 

[Heavertron]

I was thinking about this myself. One option that came to mind was NTFS (shudder) with one of the write enable NTFS programs installed in OS X. I wouldn't trust this setup to be honest though.

It's a shame windows is too backward to support a proper journaled filesystem.

 

[dusk007]

It doesn't really matter choose either NTFS or HFS+ and install a read/write driver.
The free NTFS-3G is slow and problematic but the paragon drivers are quite good. I never tried the costly Tuxera driver. You can also just enable OSX built in NTFS write access but some say it is disabled because of bugs. I am guessing it is also because Apple doesn't want you to use NTFS, especially since some Apple programs rely on HFS+ journaled features.
I am currently going the paragon NTFS driver route on OSX but I would recommend going HFS+ on Windows and make it (the data partition) an HFS+ partition. Less possible problems. I never tried it though. Load the trial and test the speed.

None native drivers are always a bit slower but NTFS-3G was like a 1/10 of USB2.0 speed on my external drive. Linux supports them all there is no reason not to trust these drivers. Sometimes there are compatibility issues. Disable Spotlight on ALL NTFS partition as a hint especially with NTFS-3G.

 

[EEXOOO]

I use ex-FAT for my external storage, read/write-able by both Windows and OSX.

 

[dusk007]

I didn't realize it supports exFAT. Just checked and it does only since last November which is after I got my MBP and set everything up.
exFAT is certainly cheaper, easier and probably even faster than any extra FS drivers.