OS X :: Which Format For External HDD And Usb Pen Drives & Networking
Feb 23, 2009
I have purchased a MBA (love it!), and I am about to sell my Windows desktop. I will be duel-booting OS X and Win 7 on my MBA, and I might add a Mac mini or a self-built Windows box to my network down the road (mostly to serve video and other files). I am getting an Airport Extreme to add to my current wireless G router/DSL modem. The AE will serve as my wireless N access point (N for the MBA, G from the other wifi router for my iPhone), and I will use it to connect my printer and an external 1TB drive. I can't decide whether to built a cheap Windows box to be my file server (and to perform random tasks when the MBA is with me) or to buy some NAS system to serve my files.
My other question is what format do I use for my external drive and a couple of pen drives I use as backup for my documents and pictures. They are currently formatted NTFS, and I realize I cannot modify them from OS X. But Mac formatting isn't visible in Windows without an added program, right? I often have files above the size limit for Fat32. So which format do I chose? One of the pen drives is used for school where I transfer Visual Studio programming files; another is a photo/document backup that I keep in a fireproof safe. Will I just need to keep one pen drive only for my programming classes formatted to NTFS? What do other people do?
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Jan 9, 2011
I'm using Macbook Pro(2010, 10.6.6) and a PC with Windows 7. I need to transfer image files from both laptops to an external drive. I formatted the external drive in exFAT and wanted to know if there are any problems that might occur in the future. I already know there is an issue with such programs as Carbon Copy Cloner. I primarily need the drive for backup of the images and not system backups. Do you have any file corruption or other problems formatting in exFAT?
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Sep 2, 2010
I just bought a new external hard drive and backed-up my computer onto it. Then today I realized that I didn't format the drive. All I did was follow instruction for hooking it up. Also, I'm a Mac user. Is it customary to do a full and proper format of newly purchased external hard drives? The most I did was verify the disk in disk utility when I first plugged in the HD to my computer. Is that enough?
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Apr 8, 2010
got a real basic question to ask and you're gonna think im an idiot for asking...I just bought a 320gb western digital elements hard drive and want to reformat it so that its compatible for both mac and pc's. i intend to format it as NTFS-3G as it would allow me to use it on the 2 platforms without having the 4GB file size restriction that fat32 has, anyway.....
when I go to reformat my external hard drive in disk utility, I see my external hard drive to the left, and there's a "sub" hard drive as a child of the external hd listed uppermost. just wandering which one of the two do i select before going to Erase>Windows NT filesystem (NTFS-3G)>erase? Do I select the uppermost drive and erase that or the lower one? or both
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Nov 5, 2009
I'm running Snow Leopard on my new Macbook Pro. I've got a 1.5TB External hard drive that I'm trying to figure out how to format in HFS+ with Apple Partition Map. I can figure out how to format in HFS using Disk Utility, however it still does it in GUID format and I do not know how to do it in Apple Partition Map.
Googleing this for hours has lead with all kinds of information on how to go to GUID FROM Apple Partition Map but not the other way around. I know GUID is the new hottness.. but this drive will be used exclusively to connect to my XBOX 360 and it supposedly only reads HFS+ when its formatted with Apple Partition Map. (I have tried it with Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with GUID, and the XBOX does NOT recognize it) I do not want to use Fat 32, (I know that that is the other major option) beacuse it limits file size.
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Dec 29, 2009
I have a Early 2006 MBP that is running Tiger and plan on upgrading to SL very soon. Right now I am trying to find a External Hard drive I can run over my wireless network so I can access my music and other files. So far the only who options that look good are the WD My Book World Edition and the Buffalo Tech Linkstation Pro. I am thinking of going with a 2 tb drive so I wont have to worry about running out of space for a while. I have a Linksys WRT54GS wireless router. Each of these external hard drives are at or around $300. Is there any other options out there?
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Feb 8, 2009
I just purchased two 2TB Western Digital MyBook Studio hard drives (from Apple) to store raw video content on. We have one Mac Pro for video editing but the rest of the office uses Windows XP.
How can I format these hard drives so they will be accessible on both OS10.4 and Windows XP? We want the full 2TB of each HD to be in one partition. Should I do the formatting on the Mac or on the PC?
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Apr 24, 2010
I bought a new Hard Drive today.
It's a 1.5TB Western Digital GreenPower WD15EARS with "Advanced Format" and a huge, 64mb Cache. I wasn't intending to get anything special, just more space.
Apparently "Advanced Format" means the drive sectors are 4kb instead of the usual 512b.
This has apparently been in the works for some time but is just now being phased in.
OSX back to Tiger (10.4) supports Advanced Format drives with no issues.
The big hold up has been Windows 5 (XP) and earlier. Using one of these drives with XP could cause a real slowdown unless special precautions are taken.
The drive installed and formatted normally under Snow Leopard. According to AJA System Test, the 5400rpm GP drive is indeed slower than my WD Blacks (duh!) and a 7200rpm Hitachi. I have yet to compare it to one of my external "regular" GreenPower drives by mounting one internally.
Here's a good description:[URL]
Any thoughts as to how this new formatting will affect Macs in particular?
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Jul 24, 2009
How do I network my w2k to my macbook pro?
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Jan 22, 2010
I plan to use it mainly on my Mac but I'd also like to be able to use it on my XP netbook and Win7 machine.
Is it better to format it as HFS in OS X and use Mac Drive on my windows machines, or is it better to format it as FAT32 so I can use it interchangebly on both machines?
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Sep 27, 2010
I am trying to figure out how to partition my HD so that it can speak easily between a Windows formatted HD and Mac HD's without the Error Code -0 (meaning it won't transfer files larger than 4gb's from HD to HD. I use a Mac running Snow Leopard and I am formatting using Disk Utility. I have always done the MS-DOS (FAT) format but like I said I am getting the Error Code -0 and it's become more of a nuisance than anything.
My options are Mac OS Extended (Journaled), Mac OS Extended, Mac OS Extended (Case-Sensitive, Journaled), Mac OS Extended (Case-Sensitive), MS-DOS (FAT) and Free Space. Is it possible to get the best option explained to me in a way that's more understandable than from the research I have discovered. Also I know Finder has issues thus the reasoning for the 4gb limit. I have downloaded a 3rd party app Path Finder to allow me to bypass that limit except whenever I copy from one HD to another it disappears once the transfer is complete.
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Oct 9, 2010
I correct in the understanding that this external drive can now be used by both my iMac and my Windows Vista PC? I want to be able to share the files (whether it be documents, photos or video) on the external hard drive with both my iMac and PC.
Additionally, is this type of formatting as stable as any other format? I am just concerned about losing any data long term. I will be backing up my files on two separate external drives using the same formatting. The duplication is in case one of the external hard drives crash.
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Dec 22, 2008
Ok, for the past 5 days I have been trying to get my External HD to be recognized by PS3. I finally had success. First, the HD needs to be formated for FAT32. Sounds easy, but... If you erase the HD, and format it to MS-DOS(FAT), it will still not work on your PS3 unless you also create and format a partition. In all, you have to format it twice, once as an entire drive, and than again as a partition. It may work if you just do step 3 and on as steps 1-2 might not be needed but I didn't want to take any chances. I also tried it on VISTA OS, no surprise its even worse, and you could only do it for 32gb or less. I have over 100gb on my PS3 so that will not work. There are some programs for Windows XP, but trying to use it with boot camp was too much trouble.
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May 20, 2012
I need to format my Mac, basically because I need to free up some space and get a fresh and empty computer. My CD-ROM has recently stopped working, and won't take any CDs, including the Mac OS X disc. Is it possible in any way to format the mac without an external CD-ROM or any back-up?
Info:MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2008), Mac OS X (10.5.8), CD-ROM not working
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Sep 18, 2010
First of all I'm really new to external HD and stuff so pardon me if I get any terms wrong.I just bought My Passport 500GB and wish to format it for: Read/write on my Mac Leopard OS, Read only for Windows XP/vista. (Even in read-only videos still can be played, right?)What would be the right format? I DON'T want it to be FAT32 since it almost corrupted my friend's HD. I've heard about NTFS but got really confused about it.
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Jul 20, 2007
i just bought the Seagate Freeagent 250GB external hard drive. I've already formatted it using disk utility and used Mac OS Extended (Journaled). the problem is that my friends who use windows cannot detect the hard drive. Can i format it another way so it can be used for both mac and windows?
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Dec 25, 2008
I am using this guide to get a new HD into my PS3: [URL:...] It says that the HD I back my PS3 up to needs to be formatted to FAT32. I have an external HD that I use with my mac, its partitioned into 4 parts. I have one partition which I don't use which I want to back my PS3 onto. In Disk Utility I select that partition and I only get 4 option under the Erase tab, 4 different Mac OS Extended options.
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Jan 8, 2009
I just brought a Western Digital 1TB USB drive for my Mac Pro. Now when I try and format it in Mac OSX journaled it keeps coming up in an error saying it can't be done, It will format as FAT32 but I need it to be Mac OSX formatted. Does anyone know what might be wrong?
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May 5, 2009
I just bought a new WD Elements (1tb) and I am getting an error when I try and format. I wish I could tell you what that error says but I was trying to figure something else out so I chose the disk6s1 and formatted it to os extended but it seems like it is frozen. I am afraid if I force quit it will screw up the drive. This is the 2nd one I have tried, I returned the 1st one thinking the drive was faulty. Now I think I screwed up the drive when I formatted it in disk utility. I have installed 2 western digital internal Hard Drives into my Pro and have used 2 other external HDs both western digitals. If there was any problems with any of my HDs, I would open up Disk Utility and Erase them to be Mac OS Extended (My WD TV won't read Journaled drives).
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May 25, 2009
I bought a new external harddisk because my old wasn't enough. Anyway I transferred files from my computer and old external harddrive to my new one . BUT then mistakenly I deleted all the data on the new harddrive. I selected zero data option while I pressed Erase Data but then stopped it after 10 seconds. Unfortunally I can not see any data on my external harddrive. Can you suggest me a easy to use tool to recover my data?
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Jul 8, 2009
I have the external drive formated as FAT of 1TB.
I have erasing all data whole day (about 20 hours) and formating as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) but at the end it reports an error.
Now, when I connect hard drive to my MBP it says "disk is not readable on this computer" - Initialize...
When i try to format as Mac OS Extended (J) it says: "Disk erase failed with error: File system formated fail"
I tried to format it on PC (Vista and XP) but they even can't see hard disk.
What should I do to get journaled formated external hard drive?
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Jul 27, 2009
I bought a new Hitachi 1tb bare drive and have been trying to format it through Disk Utility. I have it connected to my iMac system using a Newertech USB 2.0 drive connector.The new drive appears in Disk Utility, and when I go through the "Erase" tab and set if up as Journaled - the system seems to go into formatting mode for about ten minutes and then I get an error and I have to Force Quit the Disk Utility.
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Jun 19, 2010
How do I format an external HDD to read/write on a mac osx running snow leopard, and also let it be able to be readable on windows vista/7?
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Jun 2, 2012
Just got the WD MyBook 2TB. It's not the one specifically for Mac. It says it is compatible, needs to reformat. How easy is it to reformat? It is for Time Machine.
Info:
Mac mini (Mid 2011)
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Jun 23, 2012
how can I format an external cd-player that runs on windows? I want to change that to mac, so I can copy my cd's
Info:
MacBook Air
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Oct 11, 2007
Although they work fine on other computers, my external hard drive and USB key won't show up on my macbook. I know it gives power to them since my external lights up when it's plugged in, and I see that they're connected in the System Profiler, but they don't appear on the desktop. Also, my ipod shows up in iTunes, but the computer always says it's corrupted, although it works fine. I thought that was an iPod/iTunes thing but since finding out about my hard drives.
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Mar 1, 2009
What backup solutions are available for backing up two drives on to one backup drive without causing any confusion?
My setup consists of:
- Powerbook (80 GB)
- external Firewire drive (160 GB)
- external Firewire drive (500 GB) for backup
I'm running MacOS 10.4.11, so please don't suggest Time Machine.
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Oct 20, 2010
I have a 1TB portable Toshiba external HDD. Originally I had it formatted as Mac OS extended Journalled, until I ran into a problem of transferring files to a windows pc at home. So I reformatted it to NTFS-3G with a driver I installed on the mac. However I noticed it transfers files like 4 times slower. Does NTFS suck that bad? (rhetorical)
I am thinking or reformatting back to Mac Journalled and installing MacDrive (which I stumbled upon today on the net) on my windows machine. Would that be faster than my current way or all the same?
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Oct 27, 2007
I was using my external hard drive with my mac and its formatted in the MAC HF(something like that) file system. I would like to format that external hard drive such that the file system is either NTFS or FAT32 so that I can use it on my windows partition running on boot camp. I am asking this question since I am planning to get a new HD for my mac and use the old one with windows.
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Nov 3, 2008
I have an external drive that will need to be connected at different times to both my Mac (Leopard) and my Windows XP & Vista machines. I had it formatted for Mac OS (Journaled) but it wasn't readable in XP or Windows. So what is the best format so that all can read/write to it normally? NTFS? It needs to be able to handle larger files (4GB and bigger).
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