Nikali

Hi there,

Im currently making the change from PC to Mac. I have two external storage units (300GB & 500GB) and additionally my old HDD (200GB) from the PC (unformatted but everything of importance has been backed up on my storage units.

All are formatted to NTFS.

As I am new to Macs I thought I would scrawl the threads here to bone up on Mac knowledge. I came across a thread that said Macs can only read NTFS and cant write to it. They need to operate on storages formatted to Fat32.

This is obviously a problem as I will need to send data between the storage and the Mac HDD.

I am currently using my old PC and awaiting my arrival of my Mini Mac (1.83Ghz Intel - Leopard OSX).

What would you reccomend the best course of action? There is about a total of 250 GB spare that I can play with in the storage units, so I'm thinking move everything off one, formatting it to Fat32 and then moving everything back and doing the same on the other one. Just hope I have enough space! (Although can always use 80gig ipod to help).

Please advise oh Mac masters.

Oh and also, I lose some storage space when I use Fat32 right? Isn't there also a 30GB single file limit? Or is that just for Fat32 within a PC system?

Thanks

shuuhen

Macs can read NTFS formatted drives, they just can't write files on them. NTFS is not well supported on non-Windows operating systems, which is why many people use FAT32 for drives. FAT32 is well supported on every relatively current operating system I know of. Macs use different formats for most drives by default, but FAT32 is a good option for external hard drives that will be used with Windows operating systems.

Every filesystem format will use some space. Definitely not something to worry about. The point where you need the space it takes up is the point where you should look at getting another hard drive. I'm not sure about the file size limits, but I think 4 GB is the largest single file you can have on the drive.

If you don't need to put files from the Mac on the external drives, you can leave them formatted as they currently are, then start moving files between drives and dealing with formatting when you have the new Mac.

sinclair_tm

The 30 Gig limit you are thinking of is largest drive size that Windows will format a disk in FAT32. Yes, Windows can read drives that are formated in FAT32 that are larger, but Windows itself will only format 32 Gig. That's something silly Microsoft decided upon, but there are other programs that format them larger. I believe that Mac can too, but I've never done one that large, but Windows iPods are FAT32, and they goto 160 Gig, so the Mac must be able to do it.
Anywho, if you want to use these drives on the Mac and Windows, you need to format them FAT32. If you are only going to use them on the Mac, then format them HFS+. What I'd do if it were me is to take the unformatted 200 Gig drive and put it in an enclosure, and format it with the Mac as FAT32. Then copy all the info off of the 300 Gig drive to it and the Mini's drive. Now reformat it with the Mac as FAT32. Now copy all the info off of the 500 Gig drive to the 300 Gig drive and the Mini's drive. Then format the 500 Gig as FAT32 with the Mac, and then move the files to what ever drive you want to. I've done similar types of things with my Mac, only I reformatted the drives as HFS+ as they were going to be Mac only.

Nikali

thanks guys. It seems I need to read up on the different types of drives as I've only ever heard of NTFS and Fat32.

sinclair, thanks for that. It was exactly what I was planning to do. I just wasnt sure if I should do it now with my PC or wait till the Mac comes and do it with that (as I havent used Mac before so dont know what its like for formatting)

Im also trying to decide between Fat32 and the new HFS+. Im going to go read up now on the benefits of either, but I suppose it just comes down to whether they will be used with PC's at all (as I'm assuming HFS+ is only for Macs).

But another factor is I like to plug my storage into my XBOX360 and watch films from it. I know this is going outside the Mac forum area but anyone know if the format type of the drive will matter to the xbox?

Thanks

sinclair_tm

If you want to do that, then it'll most likely have to be FAT32.

shuuhen

Like sinclair_tm said, FAT32 is probably your best bet. HFS+ is better for when a drive will only be used on a Mac, but Microsoft only supports FAT/NTFS filesystems in their products.