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    How should I format my external drive?

    Discussion in 'Accessories' started by purplegreendave, Dec 21, 2012.

  1. purplegreendave

    purplegreendave Has a notebook.

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    So I've got a new external HDD to chuck all my media on - mainly videos.
    Thing is, with that many movies etc, I like to bring it 'round to friends' houses to watch stuff with them. And a lot of my friends have Macs (see where this is going?)

    Now I have a reasonable number of HD movies that go over 4gig - so FAT32 is out of the question.
    I'm quite the opposite of an Apple fan, and don't see myself ever owning another Apple product, so HFS is out of the question.

    exFAT sounds like it's possibly the least "safe" way to go - I've read that it doesn't like not being safely removed, including if the laptop goes to sleep. On the other hand, I'd have read/write access from both.

    And lastly(?) NTFS. Works with Windows fine, file limit fine and can be read by Macs. Would I have any issues playing back anything on a Macbook with NTFS?


    Hard drive is a 1TB MyPassport btw.
     
    purplegreendave, Dec 21, 2012
    #1
  2. saturnotaku

    saturnotaku Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Macs can read from NTFS drives, but they can't write to them without 3rd-party software. You should be able to play the movies just fine. If not, you could simply copy the files to the computers and watch them that way.
     
    saturnotaku, Dec 21, 2012
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  3. Jarhead

    Jarhead 恋の♡アカサタナ

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    Like saturnotaku said, OSX shouldn't have any issues reading stuff from a NTFS drive.
     
    Jarhead, Dec 21, 2012
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  4. jsipe007

    jsipe007 Notebook Consultant

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    I would go NTFS. There is a free 3rd party program that integrates with Mac to write onto NTFS Drives. I think it is MacFuse?
     
    jsipe007, Dec 21, 2012
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  5. KCETech1

    KCETech1 Notebook Prophet

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    doesnt seem to play nice with M.L.
     
    KCETech1, Dec 21, 2012
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  6. saturnotaku

    saturnotaku Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    I can verify that this is the case. Tuxera NTFS works the best in my experience. You have to pay for it, but if you are frequently reading and writing to Windows volumes from within OS X, it can be quite handy.
     
    saturnotaku, Dec 21, 2012
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  7. purplegreendave

    purplegreendave Has a notebook.

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    Cool, NTFS it is. I didn't want to go down the software route, because it'll never be attached to the same machine for a significant amount of time.
     
    purplegreendave, Dec 21, 2012
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  8. Syndrome

    Syndrome Torque Matters

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    Go NTFS, then tell all the people you know with Mac's that you can no longer be friends with them. Problem solved. ;) :D
     
    Syndrome, Dec 22, 2012
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