Best Way to Format External Drive?

tock172 · tock172 #1 (**permalink**)

05-05-2010, 02:07 AM

I am trying to figure out the best way to format my 160gb external hard drive to work between both my MBP, and my PC. I need to be able to copy files from the PC, to the hard drive, and still edit/delete these files while on the Mac.

What is the best format to do this with? Also, many of my files are over 5gb in size, so FAT will not work for the entire drive.

Chef_eam · Chef_eam #2 (**permalink**)

05-05-2010, 06:38 AM

If you need to access it from both the PC and Mac, and there are files over 4GB, I would go with NTFS. To have access to the NTFS formatted drive from the Mac you can use Paragon NTFS for MAC® OS X ? Features or NTFS-3G at Tuxera . Both will allow read/write access to NTFS partitions from Mac OS X. I know there is also a terminal command that turns on read/write access to NTFS partitions without the need for a third party driver. I'm not sure how it works, but some on the forum have had success with it (I've read the posts about it). I don't use any of the options personally, as I have Windows running in a VM and have access to my Mac formatted external drives through it, but there are many recommendations on the forum for both of the NTFS drivers I mentioned.

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tock172 #1 (permalink)
Member Since: Apr 26, 2010 Posts: 6	05-05-2010, 02:07 AM I am trying to figure out the best way to format my 160gb external hard drive to work between both my MBP, and my PC. I need to be able to copy files from the PC, to the hard drive, and still edit/delete these files while on the Mac. What is the best format to do this with? Also, many of my files are over 5gb in size, so FAT will not work for the entire drive.
	QUOTE Thanks

Chef_eam #2 (permalink)
Member Since: Dec 12, 2009 Location: Midland,Tx Posts: 357 Mac Specs: iMac 27" 2.66GHz i5, 1TB HDD, 12GB RAM, OS X 10.7.3, iPod Classic 160GB,iPad 1 64GB Wi-fi, iPhone 4S	05-05-2010, 06:38 AM If you need to access it from both the PC and Mac, and there are files over 4GB, I would go with NTFS. To have access to the NTFS formatted drive from the Mac you can use Paragon NTFS for MAC® OS X ? Features or NTFS-3G at Tuxera . Both will allow read/write access to NTFS partitions from Mac OS X. I know there is also a terminal command that turns on read/write access to NTFS partitions without the need for a third party driver. I'm not sure how it works, but some on the forum have had success with it (I've read the posts about it). I don't use any of the options personally, as I have Windows running in a VM and have access to my Mac formatted external drives through it, but there are many recommendations on the forum for both of the NTFS drivers I mentioned.
	QUOTE Thanks

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