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    What format to use for an external disk? (for linux+window+ mac os)

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by Lyanowu, Jun 21, 2011.

  1. Lyanowu

    Lyanowu Notebook Consultant

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    I have a 600GB WD laptop disk that I put in a external case and make it into an external disk. I want to format it such that it can be read and write by linux, windows, and mac os. What format is better for this? Thank you. :D
     
    Lyanowu, Jun 21, 2011
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  2. Nascentes

    Nascentes Notebook Consultant

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    NTFS. However, I believe that Mac can read NTFS, but cannot write to it. There are workarounds for that though.
     
    Nascentes, Jun 21, 2011
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  3. masterchef341

    masterchef341 The guy from The Notebook

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    There isn't any solution that will "just work" with all 3. You're going to have to pick one that supports one or, if you're lucky, two, and then add extra software to get the third one working.

    I vote exFAT. Modern filesystem, out of the box support for windows 7 and the latest version of mac os x. You have a variety of options to get support on linux, you can read the exFat wikipedia article to get some ideas.

    ---

    NTFS is fine also. It might be slightly easier to get linux support (marginally), but you'll also need 3rd party software to get it writable in OS X. So, the big issue is if you intend to use the driver with other people's computers, or share the drive with anyone, ever, you'll be set in windows and OS X with exFat.
     
    masterchef341, Jun 21, 2011
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  4. Malifiss

    Malifiss Notebook Guru

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    Second vote for exFAT
     
    Malifiss, Jun 21, 2011
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  5. kornchild2002

    kornchild2002 Notebook Deity

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    Third vote for exFAT. I formatted all of my external hard drives using that file system so that I could easily transfer content between my Windows XP/7 systems (Win XP fully supports exFAT so long as SP3 and maybe a few more updates are installed) and MBP. I think it would be best to at least get major support for 2 out of 3 systems and then worry about using workarounds for Linux. I believe FAT32 might be universal but you are stuck with not being able to copy files that are larger than 4GB due to the limitation of the file system.
     
    kornchild2002, Jun 22, 2011
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  6. snork

    snork Notebook Evangelist

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    I don't have Linux in the mix, so I've just gone with NTFS since I already had drives in the format. NTFS-3G is a good freeware driver for OSX, I haven't noticed any real lag/overhead when using it with both USB keys and external USB hard drives. You can get it directly from Apple: Apple - Downloads - System/Disk Utilities - NTFS-3G

    Apparently Tuxera "bought" it and has a commercial version now (ie: paid), not sure of the benefits that brings to the table.
     
    snork, Jun 22, 2011
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  7. aznguyen316

    aznguyen316 Rock Chalk Jayhawk

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    Hmm never used exfat. Fat32 is what I've been using for windows and mac to read and write.
     
    aznguyen316, Jun 24, 2011
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