External Hard Drive - File Formatting MAC vs PC

rgaetano

Hi all,

I have found several threads related to this - but I still don't completely get it. The topic is related to external hard drives and file formats. I think I understand that the file structures are different.

Here's my deal-- I have 7000 plus photos sitting on Windows based drives (either internal pc drives or external USB drives). My goal is to buy a dedicated drive for my IMAC and copy these to the new USB MAC drive- where I will be using Lightroom to manipulate, tag and organize.

That said,

1) Do I need to buy a drive that is 'Mac' ready/formatted
2) Can I simply hook the drive up to my XP machines- copy to the drive and then plug into my IMAC and point Lightroom at the drive?


Could use some words of wisdom here. I'd like to dedicate the IMAC for all my photos, but need some guidance on my best path forward.

Thanks as always!

btw, Lightroom on the MAC is fantastic.

BradfordBenn

You can just connect a FAT32 formatted drive to your Mac and it will see it no problem. I am running Macs at home, at work we use Windows, so I keep my drives formatted Windows as it gives me more flexibility to use a drive at either location.

rgaetano

BradfordBenn wrote:

You can just connect a FAT32 formatted drive to your Mac and it will see it no problem. I am running Macs at home, at work we use Windows, so I keep my drives formatted Windows as it gives me more flexibility to use a drive at either location.

Thanks! Is there any downside to this strategy? Any issues I would face?
When i was at the local store today, I noticed certain drives were marketed as 'Mac' compatible. What is meant by this?

Also, do you have the same strategy as me for photography? I.e. did you have a a bunch of jpegs or tifs sitting on windows drives (Fat32) that you ported over to MAC drive?

Terrence

If you expect you will only use this new drive with your Mac or another Mac, then I recommend you format for Mac to take advantage of the journaled file system. It is much faster when it comes to scanning and fixing drive problems. I do not think there is a marked performance difference between the two formats on a Mac.

No matter what format you get the drive in or intend to use it for, always, always, always perform a full format of the drive before you put one byte of data on it. You never know when you'll get a dud drive out of the box with a bad sector in the middle, or even worse infected with a virus straight from the factory. I've dealt with that before. Remote chances, but not zero.

I also like to keep my Mac pure and free of Windowsy evilness, but I take things too far sometimes.

BradfordBenn

rgaetano wrote:

Thanks! Is there any downside to this strategy? Any issues I would face?
When i was at the local store today, I noticed certain drives were marketed as 'Mac' compatible. What is meant by this?

Also, do you have the same strategy as me for photography? I.e. did you have a a bunch of jpegs or tifs sitting on windows drives (Fat32) that you ported over to MAC drive?

There are some file size limitations on FAT32, but has not been an issue for me. You will have slightly degraded speed on the Mac. Mac compatible is usually just marketing hype... Firewire and USB are interface standards so that if they are that, they should work.

I am able to move photos around no problem.

While I like my Mac lots, I also realize that there are advantages to having stuff formatted Windows such as when I am not near my Mac I can use it. Everything is a compromise but this one seems to be pretty low risk to me.

Osprey

Opposite problem
I have a large bunch of stuff on portable hard drive which was formated for Mac "out of the box" I am trying to get Vista to recognize the drive. It does not see it . Any solutions.:D

BradfordBenn

Find a fried with a Mac and some storage space?

I have no idea other than that one. The other option is if you have an airport base station you could make it a network drive.

colourbox

Osprey wrote:

I have a large bunch of stuff on portable hard drive which was formated for Mac "out of the box" I am trying to get Vista to recognize the drive. It does not see it . Any solutions.:D

If you change nothing else, then you'll need software like MacDrive which lets Windows read the Mac disk format. I have never used it so I can't speak to its effectiveness, but I'm sure there are reviews.

Also, when talking about formatting "for Windows," we're talking FAT32 and not NTFS because I don't think the Mac reads NTFS without extra software either.

CatOne

colourbox wrote:

If you change nothing else, then you'll need software like MacDrive which lets Windows read the Mac disk format. I have never used it so I can't speak to its effectiveness, but I'm sure there are reviews.

Also, when talking about formatting "for Windows," we're talking FAT32 and not NTFS because I don't think the Mac reads NTFS without extra software either.

I have used MacDrive. It's great software. $50 though.

And the Mac can read NTFS just fine. It cannot write it by default. There is MacFuse an an NTFS driver that will do it:

http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/

I haven't used it, but people have done it with success.

FAT32 is pretty crappy but it will work for sharing with Windows. It becomes HORRIBLY inefficient with file sizes when used on drives > 32 GB, but this is mainly an issue with small files. If you're using it for photos they are comparatively large so you may only waste 10-20% of drive space instead of 70% like you'd do with 4K files on a 1 TB drive with FAT32.

jaswebpics

There can be problems with FAT32 and Mac - I don't think it's a reliable long-term solution (Google the disaster stories, you'll see). I've had problems twice in 10 years, but that was enough to lose some important files and have to run repair utilities on the drive to make it usable again.

Recently I discovered how easy it was to get OSX to see NTFS drives and have been using that since. It's not super fast, but if Mac is the minority of your time, it's probably a good choice. Look up MacFuse and NTFS-3G... (free)

Use any name-brand external case and good hard drive, forget the pre-packaged over-priced drives. Look up some reviews for noise and cooling issues of the case and drives. A slower speed drive might be a good choice (less heat and noise). Some people swear by Samsung HDs for home theatre, but I'm sure WD and Seagate have good options too. I'm using a Coolermaster case at the moment which I really like - it's quiet and seems to have good airflow...

JonnyLotto

One thing often overlooked: go one step up from an external drive and get a NAS (Network Attached Storage) box like the Buffalo TeraStation.

One to Four Terabytes or more of RAID 5 storage, compatible with Mac, Windows and Unix/Linux out-of-the-box plus you can attach additional external USB drives to them and get even more storage.

CatOne

JonnyLotto wrote:

One thing often overlooked: go one step up from an external drive and get a NAS (Network Attached Storage) box like the Buffalo TeraStation.

One to Four Terabytes or more of RAID 5 storage, compatible with Mac, Windows and Unix/Linux out-of-the-box plus you can attach additional external USB drives to them and get even more storage.

Yeah, but be careful. For example, neither Aperture nor Lightroom will allow you to store your catalog on a NAS device. You can store the photos there, but the catalogs themselves CANNOT be there.

Not to mention, a NAS box like the Infrant ReadyNAS, which itself is faster by a fair bit than the TeraStation, writes at around 25 MB/sec, best case. A garden variety Firewire 800-attached drive will do 50-60 MB/sec.

RAID 5 is great, and it has redundancy, but most NAS devices that support RAID 5 and cost less than $5000 are SLOW. If you get a NetApp Filer, you're in good shape, but you better budget 5 figures for starters ;-)