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#1
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help to access external HD from PC and Mac
I'm regularly a PC user but have just purchased a second computer
which is a MAC. I backup my data to a 500GB External HD with 5 NTFS partitions of 100GB each. Each partition contains a different type of date, ie Music, Videos, Docs, etc. I used separate partition to avoid the risk of corrupting all my data if murphy visits. (This has happened.) With my new mac, my goal now is to be able to use this so I can have 1 common storage for both my PC and Mac. I want to be able to access the data in the HD from both computers. NTFS doesn't work because it is not supported natively by Mac. I'm stumped. At first I had planned to do repartition and reformat with FAT32 since it's accessible by both systems but since FAT32 has size limits my 100GB partitions can't be formatted as Fat32. I can't do NTFS because Mac can't access it. I can't do HFS because PC can't access it. I need 1 HD accessible by both PC and Mac. Help! Any suggestions? I really appreciate it because I'm stumped. Thanks. |
#2
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help to access external HD from PC and Mac
Gizzo wrote:
I'm regularly a PC user but have just purchased a second computer which is a MAC. I backup my data to a 500GB External HD with 5 NTFS partitions of 100GB each. Each partition contains a different type of date, ie Music, Videos, Docs, etc. I used separate partition to avoid the risk of corrupting all my data if murphy visits. (This has happened.) With my new mac, my goal now is to be able to use this so I can have 1 common storage for both my PC and Mac. I want to be able to access the data in the HD from both computers. NTFS doesn't work because it is not supported natively by Mac. I'm stumped. At first I had planned to do repartition and reformat with FAT32 since it's accessible by both systems but since FAT32 has size limits my 100GB partitions can't be formatted as Fat32. I can't do NTFS because Mac can't access it. I can't do HFS because PC can't access it. I need 1 HD accessible by both PC and Mac. Help! Any suggestions? I really appreciate it because I'm stumped. Thanks. Use a Linux tool to re-format the partitions as FAT-32, they don't have the size limit. I use System Rescue CD http://www.sysresccd.org, a live CD to do this stuff. Gparted is the tool. Cheers, Gary B-) -- __________________________________________________ ____________________________ Armful of chairs: Something some people would not know whether you were up them with or not - Barry Humphries |
#3
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help to access external HD from PC and Mac
Backup Mac as Mac - SMB - PC - NTFS external disk.
-- Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP StorageCraft Corporation http://www.storagecraft.com "Gizzo" wrote in message ... I'm regularly a PC user but have just purchased a second computer which is a MAC. I backup my data to a 500GB External HD with 5 NTFS partitions of 100GB each. Each partition contains a different type of date, ie Music, Videos, Docs, etc. I used separate partition to avoid the risk of corrupting all my data if murphy visits. (This has happened.) With my new mac, my goal now is to be able to use this so I can have 1 common storage for both my PC and Mac. I want to be able to access the data in the HD from both computers. NTFS doesn't work because it is not supported natively by Mac. I'm stumped. At first I had planned to do repartition and reformat with FAT32 since it's accessible by both systems but since FAT32 has size limits my 100GB partitions can't be formatted as Fat32. I can't do NTFS because Mac can't access it. I can't do HFS because PC can't access it. I need 1 HD accessible by both PC and Mac. Help! Any suggestions? I really appreciate it because I'm stumped. Thanks. |
#4
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help to access external HD from PC and Mac
Sorry but what do you mean by your text diagram below?
On Jul 20, 3:53*am, "Maxim S. Shatskih" wrote: * * Backup Mac as Mac - SMB - PC - NTFS external disk. -- Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP StorageCraft Corporation "Gizzo" wrote in message ... I'm regularly a PC user but have just purchased a second computer which is a MAC. I backup my data to a 500GB External HD with 5 NTFS partitions of 100GB each. Each partition contains a different type of date, ie Music, Videos, Docs, etc. I used separate partition to avoid the risk of corrupting all my data if murphy visits. (This has happened.) With my new mac, my goal now is to be able to use this so I can have 1 common storage for both my PC and Mac. I want to be able to access the data in the HD from both computers. NTFS doesn't work because it is not supported natively by Mac. I'm stumped. At first I had planned to do repartition and reformat with FAT32 since it's accessible by both systems but since FAT32 has size limits my 100GB partitions can't be formatted as Fat32. I can't do NTFS because Mac can't access it. I can't do HFS because PC can't access it. I need 1 HD accessible by both PC and Mac. Help! Any suggestions? I really appreciate it because I'm stumped. Thanks. |
#5
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help to access external HD from PC and Mac
Hi Gizzo!
Don't know what Shatskih really meant, but to use a external network storage (with some of the common network filesystem protocols like CIFS (aka SMB), NFS, HTTP) is a good approach to solve the problem. There are some (at least one) tools (eg. MacDrive) to learn windows to use HFS. Don't know how stable these tools work. Another approach - at one's own risk - is the free NTFS driver for linux/mac/bsd ... http://www.ntfs-3g.org/ btw. i use the 3g driver with linux and never had problems with it. -- With best regards Dieter Stumpner PS: sorry 4 tofu posting Gizzo wrote: Sorry but what do you mean by your text diagram below? On Jul 20, 3:53 am, "Maxim S. Shatskih" wrote: Backup Mac as Mac - SMB - PC - NTFS external disk. -- Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP StorageCraft Corporation "Gizzo" wrote in message ... I'm regularly a PC user but have just purchased a second computer which is a MAC. I backup my data to a 500GB External HD with 5 NTFS partitions of 100GB each. Each partition contains a different type of date, ie Music, Videos, Docs, etc. I used separate partition to avoid the risk of corrupting all my data if murphy visits. (This has happened.) With my new mac, my goal now is to be able to use this so I can have 1 common storage for both my PC and Mac. I want to be able to access the data in the HD from both computers. NTFS doesn't work because it is not supported natively by Mac. I'm stumped. At first I had planned to do repartition and reformat with FAT32 since it's accessible by both systems but since FAT32 has size limits my 100GB partitions can't be formatted as Fat32. I can't do NTFS because Mac can't access it. I can't do HFS because PC can't access it. I need 1 HD accessible by both PC and Mac. Help! Any suggestions? I really appreciate it because I'm stumped. Thanks. |
#6
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help to access external HD from PC and Mac
Gizzo wrote:
.... I had planned to do repartition and reformat with FAT32 since it's accessible by both systems but since FAT32 has size limits my 100GB partitions can't be formatted as Fat32. I believe that's incorrect. While Win98SE and earlier Scandisks have problems with partitions larger than 120 GB or so, and the original Win98SE and earlier fdisks report sizes incorrectly above 64 GB, my impression is that (aside from such issues with old utilities) all systems that can handle FAT32 at all can handle partitions up to at least 2 TB in size. Perhaps you're being misled by the fact that in its infinite wisdom Microsoft decided that WinXP (and its predecessor Win2K) should not be able to *create* FAT32 partitions larger than 32 GB, thus 'encouraging' people to use NTFS for larger partitions (for their own good, of course - the idea that they might have actually have had a reason to want to use FAT32 for such partitions apparently not having been considered). So just consider that a deficiency of XP and use something else to create the partitions (Wikipedia says you can even use XP's format.exe command-line utility), after which any Windows system that supports FAT32 (and presumably Mac) should access them just fine (and most of the reasons that Microsoft likely had for attempting to discourage such use don't apply to the kind of backup use that you're planning). - bill |
#7
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help to access external HD from PC and Mac
Perhaps you're being misled by the fact that in its infinite wisdom
Microsoft decided that WinXP (and its predecessor Win2K) should not be able to *create* FAT32 partitions larger than 32 GB, Correct. A bad decision. BTW - Vista/2008 can format 128GB to exFAT. create the partitions (Wikipedia says you can even use XP's format.exe command-line utility), No. Creating a partition using Windows Setup booted off Windows CD can probably work, but not command-line FORMAT which also has the artificial limitation. after which any Windows system that supports FAT32 (and presumably Mac) should access them just fine Yes. There are plenty of laptops where Windows is installed on a 40-100GB FAT32 partition. -- Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP StorageCraft Corporation http://www.storagecraft.com |
#8
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help to access external HD from PC and Mac
You guys are right. After research, the 32GB is indeed an artificial
limit. Now, I'm still back to my problem. What is the optimal option (each got its tradeoffs): 1. format it in fat32. access from PC and Mac thru USB/Firewire. Pro: easy. Con: performance issues? 2. format it in HFS. install macdrive in PC. access thru USB/Fireware. Pro: whatever benefits of formating with HFS (I'm not very familiar since I'm a mac newbie and initial research indicates there are inherent benefits as there are with NTFS over Fat32. Con: I have no experience with HFS nor Macdrive to judge their reliability. and $50 on Macdrive. 3. no need to reformat or repartition. Share the drive using native network tools in both PC and Mac. Pros: no reformating. Con: I don't know how to do it in a home environment of 1 pc, 1 mac and 1 wireless router. 4. Other options? Which do you think is the most optimal? On Jul 20, 9:45*pm, "Maxim S. Shatskih" wrote: Perhaps you're being misled by the fact that in its infinite wisdom Microsoft decided that WinXP (and its predecessor Win2K) should not be able to *create* FAT32 partitions larger than 32 GB, Correct. A bad decision. BTW - Vista/2008 can format 128GB to exFAT. create the partitions (Wikipedia says you can even use XP's format.exe command-line utility), No. Creating a partition using Windows Setup booted off Windows CD can probably work, but not command-line FORMAT which also has the artificial limitation. |
#9
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help to access external HD from PC and Mac
Gizzo wrote:
.... 1. format it in fat32. access from PC and Mac thru USB/Firewire. Pro: easy. Another pro is that you needn't leave it connected much of the time, thus both reducing potential exposure to corruption by errant or malicious software and allowing you to keep it physically separate from the primary material that you're backing up. Con: performance issues? Probably not serious ones (though you might want to defragment it once in a while if performance deteriorates over time - depends on how you're using it): while USB 2 can't stream data to/from a contemporary drive as fast as the drive can handle it (typically 40 - 80 MB/sec), it should be able to handle around 30 MB/sec. 2. format it in HFS. install macdrive in PC. access thru USB/Fireware. Pro: whatever benefits of formating with HFS (I'm not very familiar since I'm a mac newbie and initial research indicates there are inherent benefits as there are with NTFS over Fat32. Exactly which of these do you think would be significant to your planned use of this drive? Con: I have no experience with HFS nor Macdrive to judge their reliability. and $50 on Macdrive. 3. no need to reformat or repartition. Share the drive using native network tools in both PC and Mac. Pros: no reformating. Con: I don't know how to do it in a home environment of 1 pc, 1 mac and 1 wireless router. If you're using wireless don't plan on getting too much bandwidth through it from the machine to which the backup drive isn't connected directly. For that matter, even wired Ethernet would be the main bottleneck unless it was Gigabit. - bill |
#10
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help to access external HD from PC and Mac
Can I partition the drive so that those that I primarily use in the
mac, ie videos, music, photos are formatted in HFS and those I primarily use in the PC, ie docs, pst files are formatted in NTFS. I will lose the ability of cross platform access but I can have my computers do specialized tasks: mac for media. pc for work. Has someone tried this before? What are the pros and cons? Thanks On Jul 21, 6:12*am, Bill Todd wrote: Gizzo wrote: ... 1. format it in fat32. access from PC and Mac thru USB/Firewire. Pro: easy. Another pro is that you needn't leave it connected much of the time, thus both reducing potential exposure to corruption by errant or malicious software and allowing you to keep it physically separate from the primary material that you're backing up. Con: performance issues? Probably not serious ones (though you might want to defragment it once in a while if performance deteriorates over time - depends on how you're using it): *while USB 2 can't stream data to/from a contemporary drive as fast as the drive can handle it (typically 40 - 80 MB/sec), it should be able to handle around 30 MB/sec. 2. format it in HFS. install macdrive in PC. access thru USB/Fireware. Pro: whatever benefits of formating with HFS (I'm not very familiar since I'm a mac newbie and initial research indicates there are inherent benefits as there are with NTFS over Fat32. Exactly which of these do you think would be significant to your planned use of this drive? * Con: I have no experience with HFS nor Macdrive to judge their reliability. and $50 on Macdrive. 3. no need to reformat or repartition. Share the drive using native network tools in both PC and Mac. Pros: no reformating. Con: I don't know how to do it in a home environment of 1 pc, 1 mac and 1 wireless router. If you're using wireless don't plan on getting too much bandwidth through it from the machine to which the backup drive isn't connected directly. *For that matter, even wired Ethernet would be the main bottleneck unless it was Gigabit. - bill |
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