Transfering music and files from PC to Mac

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2.26 13" MBP, WD 7200 RPM 320GB HDD, 4GB RAM; 2 EDU iBook G4s, 4g nano, 16GB 2g Touch, shuffle
I need to transfer my files, music, and pictures (maybe only about 100GB worth, not too big) from my Dell desktop to my iMac when I get it.

I want to get an external HDD to do this with that I will be able to use with my iMac after I transfer everything.

Any recommendations on dual interface HDDs? Or just USB ones? And is it possible to use a HDD with a PC then just plug it into a Mac and transfer the files? Or is there something you have to do to get the music files, etc. into Mac mode? Thank you for your patience with me and all of my questions!
 
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To transfer your files, you should have no problems, the Mac can read Windows file systems (NTFS) and regular FAT drives. It can't write to NTFS, though. Once you've brought all your stuff to the Mac, you can use OSX's disk utility to format the drive to FAT so you can read and write to it in both OSes.

See also Wikipedia for "File Allocation Table" (FAT), NTFS and file systems to learn more.
 
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Most External HD's comes in fat32 file format so it can work on both mac and pc so you won't have no problems there.
 
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If you have a network set up that both the Dell and the Mac connect to, you can transfer your file over that as well so you wont need an external drive. Mac can connect to shared drives/folders on your Windows PC.
 

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