Writing from WinXP to an HFS+ USB on my iBook (OS 10.4.11)

[pilot1226]

Hi,

I understand that you obviously want as many backups as possible with Time Machine in the event something gets jacked up.

I have a 1 TB Western Digital Caviar Green HDD (5400RPM, 64MB Cache, SATA) in a USB HDD External Enclosure that just arrived today from Newegg.

Eventually, my current Desktop (running WinXP SP3) will be replaced with an iMac this year, after the new model gets released. Other computers in my house include a Gateway Laptop also running WinXP SP3 and my iBook G4 running OS 10.4.11.

I was planning on splitting the HDD 60/40; 600GB would be formatted in HFS+ format and used purely for Time Machine backups, and 400GB would be formatted in NTFS format and used for data (music, pictures, important documents.)

At this time on my Desktop, I have a total of 320GB of storage space (2 160GB Western Digital CaviarSE HDD's on RAID-0) and I'm only using about 85GB of that, which includes a few monster games (World of Warcraft is taking up 25GB, Steam games take up around another 10-15GB.)

I need this external drive to be available to all my computers to keep a safe copy of documents, so here is the meat of the question:

How much space does Time Machine actually use? Would it be more beneficial for me to change the partition to something other than 600GB/400GB as I planned on doing?

Is it better to download the Third-Party files for the Mac to read/write to NTFS, or for the PC to read/write HFS+, or both?

Thanks in advance!

 

[EdgelessLemming]

The first backup takes as much space as you are using on your hard drive. Then, every backup from there just accounts for any changes you've made. So if you add 2 GB of videos in between back-ups, your next back-up should be around 2 GB.

 

[Dave Braine]

Although, if you click Info on that second backup, it will tell you that it's as big as the first one.

 

[Macky-Mac]

ultimately it'll fill up ALL the available space and then when the disk is full, it'll start deleting older back-ups so the more space you give it, the longer you'll have a back-up of older stuff

 

[pilot1226]

Okay, got it. Any suggestions on HFS+ vs NTFS, or at least any good programs you've used to work between the two?

 

[r0k]

Okay, got it. Any suggestions on HFS+ vs NTFS, or at least any good programs you've used to work between the two?

I always format my usb hard drive media as hfs but I don't have any more windows boxes lying around. For network attached storage, it's not important as you aren't writing directly to the media using OSX. So if you are plugging a drive into an airport extreme, go ahead and make it hfs. If you are plugging that same drive into a non-apple device, you can leave it as shipped which is more often than not fat32.

If I understand your case correctly, it sounds like making the whole thing hfs will work.

 

[pilot1226]

Alright, I'll have a go now and report back tomorrow.

 

[pilot1226]

Man, what a pain in the butt.

Apple's Disk Utility doesn't play well with having one partition as an HFS+ and the second one as an MS-DOS (FAT32) format, and it kept getting stuck on "Creating Partition Map"

I believe this has something to do with the requirement to put "Master Boot Record" in Options so you get the FAT32 available.

So, after a few tries at this, I decided to split the drive into 2 partitions (about 470GB each after formatting) and just left them both as an Apple Partition Table HFS+.

I'm using HFSexplorer - a free app - for my WindowsXP machine(s) to read the drive. It's an extra step that I'm not so happy with, but it's the only way I got this to work. Unfortunately, even booting in Windows, I can't seem to find a way to format the partition into FAT32. Must be something they changed.

What I'm doing now is copying the files I want to backup from my existing desktop via Wireless connection to my iBook, then using the USB to move them onto the external HDD.

Is there a way to copy directly to the HDD via the sharing features of OSX? I can see my hard drive because I've set these up via Sharing in System Preferences, but I don't see my USB HDD (called External HD), I only see Desktop, Applications, Docs, Movies, Music and Pictures. I'm imagining that this is because WinXP can't write directly to an HFS+ media?

Any suggestions?

Changing the title of this thread for the most current topic.



UPDATE:

I've now connected my iBook to my Desktop via an ethernet connection and set up a Network Place for ease of access in Windows XP. It's still an extra step, because once I'm done I now have to transfer from the iBook to my External HDD, but it seems to be working, and with the HFS+ reader, I can pull the files up in Windows if I had to. So, I can manage this way until the new iMac makes its way to my office later this year. Around 10GB of data transferred via ethernet took about 25 minutes. Not too shabby.

Thanks for any comments above.