which hard drive format?

[LeorD]

Well im about to purchase a 1tb hard drive and its probably gonna be the LaCie 301315U, the purpose is to store large video files (4GB+) so i think fat32 is out, i understand there is ntfs and macdrive or something similar..

so basically my question is what are the advantages and disadvantages of ntfs and macdrive(or whatever..)

Tnx!

 

[sickmacdoc]

Well the question comes down to one thing- are you planning to try to use it with Windows or just your Mac?

If just your Mac, then just formatting with Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and changing the partition map scheme to GUID Partition Table (assuming you have an Intel based Mac-- Apple Partition Map if you have a PowerPC based Mac) all in Disk Utility will be all you need to do.

If you are planning some hybrid use with a Mac and a PC, give us a little more info about your usage of it and we will take care of some more answers about that setup.

 

[xUKHCx]

MacDrive is a tool that allows a windows computer to read/write to Mac HFS formatted drives.

NTFS is a windows based harddrive format which can only natively be read with OS X. You need to install something called MacFuse to allow it to be written to.

I take it that you will be using this drive with both Windows and Mac?

If you are just going to use it with a Mac then you should format it as HFS+.

 

[LeorD]

i dont intend to use it on windows .. however, HFS will "lock" me?, will i still be able to drag a file to my desktop and transfer it to a thumb drive for example?

what is the diffrence between HFS and NTFS?

 

[SimonJ]

i dont intend to use it on windows .. however, HFS will "lock" me?, will i still be able to drag a file to my desktop and transfer it to a thumb drive for example?

what is the diffrence between HFS and NTFS?

HFS is what Mac OS X uses - you can always read/write.

 

[sickmacdoc]

HFS+ (referred to in the current Disk Utility as Mac OS Extended) is a format developed specifically for Macs. NTFS is a format developed for using with Windows on PC systems.

Macs can read only from disks formatted as NTFS unless additional software (of which a free version and a different commercial solution both exist) is installed to allow them to write to NTFS. In reverse, Windows can neither read from or write to Mac OS Extended drives without additional commercial software being installed (MacDrive).

The thumb drive should be NO problem whatsoever as it will almost surely be formatted in FAT32 which is another Windows format that the Mac can already read from and write to. I have never seen a thumb drive formatted as NTFS but I suppose it would be possible....

Now here is one reason that you want to use the Mac format (other than the full support)- if a drive is formatted in Mac OS Extended (and you set the Mac partition map scheme) and you are using Leopard you have the ability to add, resize or delete partitions on the drive at any time non-destructively. That does not work on a drive formatted and partition mapped for Windows use with which you would have to completely erase the drive as part of the partition changing process.

 

[LeorD]

so if im using the drive only on a mac then HFS+?
and if i want to use the drive for time machine+ storage then ill need partitions?, is the process easy or difficult? is there a guide maybe that could steer me into the right direction?
what do you mean mac os x extended?, im currently running Leopard 10.5.5 on my intel based imac..

btw does any of you know if ps3 can read HFS+? or its fat32 only?

 

[old-wiz]

"mac os x extended" is the name of the type of file system, not the operating system. Leopard and Tiger both use that format.

 

[sickmacdoc]

so if im using the drive only on a mac then HFS+?
and if i want to use the drive for time machine+ storage then ill need partitions?, is the process easy or difficult? is there a guide maybe that could steer me into the right direction?
what do you mean mac os x extended?, im currently running Leopard 10.5.5 on my intel based imac..

btw does any of you know if ps3 can read HFS+? or its fat32 only?

Well since old-wiz answered about Mac OS Extended I will only mirror what I said the first time about that- that the "HFS+" you refer to is actually now referred to as "Mac OS Extended" in Disk Utility, etc.

As to the Time Machine use, partitioning a drive to use it is not required. When Time Machine is first run, it sets up a folder on the destination drive for its backups and the writes all the info in that specific folder. In some respects, not partitioning is technically better as establishing a set partition size for TM use only would place an arbitrary max size on your TM backup file. Now having a separate drive exclusively for TM use is another story altogether and is what I use for my boot drive!

Sorry can't help with the PS3 info, but I suspect a little Google searching would turn up an answer pretty quick as I am sure that this is not the first time Mac users have asked. Either that or hopefully somebody here will answer it!