What external Hdd formatting to support Windows and Mac OS

iFan · Apr 14, 2014

Hey guys...

as the title says, what formatting would you suggest to format an external drive to accept both mac os and windows os read/write...what are you guys using?

I want to back-up my mac stuf on my external, but be able to watch my content, and watch them on a windows machine too.

I have a mac, and 2 externals, one travel, one to stay at home. I realize FAT32, would be best and someone said the 4gb file limit doesn't apply on a Mac, but wont work for windows. I don't really want to use any plugin's etc..

Another good suggestion was to partition the drive, and I am really leaning towards this...as mac can read NTFS.

Cheers!

vinodh · Apr 14, 2014

The 4GB file size limit will always apply to FAT32, regardless of OS. I suggest that you use FAT32 since it's most tv shows and movies will be under 4GB anyway.

Electric · Apr 14, 2014

vinodh said:
The 4GB file size limit will always apply to FAT32, regardless of OS. I suggest that you use FAT32 since it's most tv shows and movies will be under 4GB anyway.

I prefer NTFS to Fat32 anyday.
FAT32 is slow and a pain in the arse.

SauRoNZA · Apr 14, 2014

You can use NTFS but then you need to install the driver on OSX to make it writeable.

Not too much of a triansmash but still a bit of drama especially if you use more than one OSX machine.

Then there's the universally acceptable new format exFAT which was introduced in either Windows 7 or 8 so if you are running either of those you can make use of that which is natively supported in newer versions of OSX.

*****

I see it's been supported since Windows XP, it was actually OSX that lagged behind and only added support in 10.6.5

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT

GreGorGy · Apr 14, 2014

I use exfat but my bluray player doesn't read it. Writing ntfs on a mac will always be a ball ache regardless of the sales pitches. That said i have yet to watch a new movie bigger than 4gb. The problem is mac backup so for that i have a dedicated drive

hawker · Apr 14, 2014

exFAT.

SauRoNZA · Apr 14, 2014

GreGorGy said:
I use exfat but my bluray player doesn't read it. Writing ntfs on a mac will always be a ball ache regardless of the sales pitches. That said i have yet to watch a new movie bigger than 4gb. The problem is mac backup so for that i have a dedicated drive

LOL!

I don't have a single movie under 4GB.

ian_stagib · Apr 14, 2014

SauRoNZA said:
LOL!

I don't have a single movie under 4GB.

I agree. Only 1080p stuff and they're all 10gb+

GreGorGy · Apr 14, 2014

SauRoNZA said:
LOL!

I don't have a single movie under 4GB.

Downloads?

SauRoNZA · Apr 14, 2014

GreGorGy said:
Downloads?

Yup.

iTunes is normally about 5-6GB at 720P, bigger at 1080P.

Seerower stuff is generally larger as they aren't as fussed with compression.

GreGorGy · Apr 14, 2014

SauRoNZA said:
Yup.

iTunes is normally about 5-6GB at 720P, bigger at 1080P.

Seerower stuff is generally larger as they aren't as fussed with compression.

Torrents are chosen by me according to size. Don't have unlimited, uncapped. So, perhaps I should not have said "downloads" as much as I should have said AltDownloads

[)roi(] · Apr 14, 2014

ExFAT!

The only issues with exFAT pertained to OS X Snow Leopard or less (re an incompatible block size for Windows, however there are known workarounds for this);

Since Lion everything works as you'd expect, seamlessly.

ginggs · Apr 14, 2014

UDF is readable and writable by Windows (>XP) and OS X and Linux and supports large (>4GB) files. Windows XP can read UDF, but not write to it.

hawker · Apr 14, 2014

[)roi(];12480510 said:
ExFAT!

The only issues with exFAT pertained to OS X Snow Leopard or less (re an incompatible block size for Windows, however there are known workarounds for this);

Since Lion everything works as you'd expect, seamlessly.

Yup. NTFS is a ballache to get working in Mac. exFAT works seamlessly between my windows desktop and my Macbook.

noxibox · Apr 15, 2014

hawker said:
Yup. NTFS is a ballache to get working in Mac. exFAT works seamlessly between my windows desktop and my Macbook.

If I were doing an external drive only for sharing between Windows and Mac I'd go with exFAT. For generally accessing NTFS drives we just use a commercial NTFS driver. Completely painless.

iFan · Apr 15, 2014

Thanks for all the replies guys! Much appreciated!!

vinodh said:
The 4GB file size limit will always apply to FAT32, regardless of OS. I suggest that you use FAT32 since it's most tv shows and movies will be under 4GB anyway.

hmmm you see for me the 4gb really is a big issue...especially with graphic design, I do some motion work and those files easily exceed 4gb, never mind the source files of 1080p recorded video of 1 hour +..eish!

SauRoNZA said:
You can use NTFS but then you need to install the driver on OSX to make it writeable.

Not too much of a triansmash but still a bit of drama especially if you use more than one OSX machine.

Then there's the universally acceptable new format exFAT which was introduced in either Windows 7 or 8 so if you are running either of those you can make use of that which is natively supported in newer versions of OSX.

*****

I see it's been supported since Windows XP, it was actually OSX that lagged behind and only added support in 10.6.5

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT

Yeah, I also heard it's not a train-smash, but much prefer a minimalistic approach, if I can get around not suing a driver, i.e. exFAT...then i'd be happy

hawker said:
exFAT.

+1

SauRoNZA said:
LOL!

I don't have a single movie under 4GB.

My problem exactly, between my design stuff and movies, i'll have problems with FAT32!

[)roi(];12480510 said:
ExFAT!

The only issues with exFAT pertained to OS X Snow Leopard or less (re an incompatible block size for Windows, however there are known workarounds for this);

Since Lion everything works as you'd expect, seamlessly.

That's good to know, I am on Mavericks, so no issue there then I hope, I think exFAT will be the way to go..I read somewhwere one should format it for exFAT on windows instead of on my mac?

iFan · Apr 15, 2014

ginggs said:
UDF is readable and writable by Windows (>XP) and OS X and Linux and supports large (>4GB) files. Windows XP can read UDF, but not write to it.

Thanks for this, haven't heard of this format, will read up on your link

Anybody else use this?

hawker said:
Yup. NTFS is a ballache to get working in Mac. exFAT works seamlessly between my windows desktop and my Macbook.

NTFS read wise is hundreds, but yeah don't need any hassle with the write part! Glad to hear exFAT works, did you format it to that on your Mac?

noxibox said:
If I were doing an external drive only for sharing between Windows and Mac I'd go with exFAT. For generally accessing NTFS drives we just use a commercial NTFS driver. Completely painless.

I definitely think I am leaning towards exFAT!

GreGorGy · Apr 15, 2014

iFan said:
Thanks for this, haven't heard of this format, will read up on your link

Anybody else use this?

Yes but making a drive UDF isn't so straight forward. It is probably easier on a PC (someone else will have to chime in here) but on a Mac it requires command line FU. Thanks Ginggs - it reminded me how I used to do things in the OS 9 days so maybe I will go back to this method for a while. I will post Mac command line instructions shortly - I am on a pc at the moment.

GreGorGy · Apr 15, 2014

Terminal stuff follows:

Code:

[COLOR="#008000"][B]GregMBP:~ gregory$ diskutil list[/B][/COLOR]
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macbook Pro             499.2 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *4.1 GB     [B]disk1[/B]
   1:                 DOS_FAT_32 UNTITLED                4.1 GB     [B]disk1s1[/B]

# We need that disk1 ID

[COLOR="#008000"][B]GregMBP:~ gregory$ diskutil info /dev/disk1 | grep "Block Size"[/B][/COLOR]
   Device Block Size:        512 Bytes

# We need this number later

[COLOR="#008000"][B]GregMBP:~ gregory$ diskutil unmount /dev/disk1s1[/B][/COLOR]
Volume UNTITLED on disk1s1 unmounted
[COLOR="#008000"][B]GregMBP:~ gregory$ diskutil secureErase 0 /dev/disk1[/B][/COLOR]
Started erase on disk1
[ \ 0%..10%..20%..30%..40%..50%..60%..70%................ ] 79% 0:10:00 
Finished erase on disk1

# Expect about 2 minutes/GB on a flash drive. YMMV

[COLOR="#008000"][B]GregMBP:~ gregory$ sudo newfs_udf -b 512 /dev/disk1[/B][/COLOR]
Password: [COLOR="#008000"][B]<-your sudo password[/B][/COLOR]
write to block device: /dev/disk1  last written block address: 7913470
[COLOR="#008000"][B]GregMBP:~ gregory$ diskutil mount /dev/disk1[/B][/COLOR]
Volume Untitled UDF Volume on /dev/disk1 mounted

krono9 · Apr 15, 2014

I ended up using Paragon NTFS...no more format issues as most my drives NTFS.. http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/

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