going to be switiching from PC to Mac: external hard drive question

[jabromusic]

hello. i'm new here and will be switching from a PC to a new iMac in a few weeks. i'm a professional musician and will be doing a lot of music production on my new machine.

i had a question regarding external hard drives. right now, i have a 1TB glyph external drive with all of my music, movies, pictures, word documents, etc... it's obviously formatted for NTFS and is almost full. i plan on purchasing a new 4 TB G Drive (with thunderbolt and USB 3.0) which will be formatted to use with my new iMac. can i just drag and drop everything from my old NTFS drive to the new HFS drive and my new iMac will read and write flawlessly or is there another step i have to take? i've tried to do a few google searches but nothing is really turning up. thanks in advance and i look forward to joining the Mac community in the next few weeks!

p.s. i just heard about the Paragon software (NTFS for Mac). would it be better to format my new G Drive to NTFS and just download this new software from Paragon? i'm guessing that it works flawlessly with no problems?

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Welcome to Mac-Forums..

When you get your new drive, ensure that you format it ExFAT as opposed HFS. That way you can see it on your PC right now with your current NTFS drive. You should be able to copy the files over and be able to see the ExFAT drive on your Mac without any issues. This also allows you to share the drive with other Windows/Linux machines in the future.

If you want to access the NTFS drive directly on the Mac, you'll see the Paragon software.

 

[jabromusic]

thanks for the reply ashwin! i always thought that exFAT was for removeable media like USB sticks. also, i want to be able to use time machine and the only way to do that is for the drive to be HFS+

 

[Raz0rEdge]

If you are certain that you'll only ever use this external drive with Macs, then by all means format it as HFS.

 

[jabromusic]

If you are certain that you'll only ever use this external drive with Macs, then by all means format it as HFS.

thanks again ashwin. here's my problem right now: my PC won't even recognize an external hard drive that is formatted for HFS+. my girlfriend has a macbook pro with an additional external drive formatted for HFS+. as an experiment, i hooked it up to my PC and it wasn't even recognized.

what i'd like to do is get a 4TB G-Drive formatted for HFS+ and copy everything that's on my existing 1TB NTFS external drive over before i get my iMac. that way, the drive will be ready to go the day that i receive my iMac. is there any way to do this? once i get my iMac, i won't be switching between a PC and a Mac. it will be all Mac, all the time

 

[RadDave]

....... my PC won't even recognize an external hard drive that is formatted for HFS+. my girlfriend has a macbook pro with an additional external drive formatted for HFS+. as an experiment, i hooked it up to my PC and it wasn't even recognized.

what i'd like to do is get a 4TB G-Drive formatted for HFS+ and copy everything that's on my existing 1TB NTFS external drive over before i get my iMac. that way, the drive will be ready to go the day that i receive my iMac. is there any way to do this? once i get my iMac, i won't be switching between a PC and a Mac. it will be all Mac, all the time

Well, as already suggested, paid software like Paragon would allow your PC to recognize the new HFS+ formatted HD - also, check this LINK for some other ideas - now I've not tried the 'free' method mentioned, so on your own unless others 'chime in' w/ some personal experience. Dave

 

[MacInWin]

OK, so here's the background to the problem. Microsoft created a unique file structure called NTFS and uses it as the default on Windows machines. Apple also created a file structure for drives called HFS+ and uses that as the default for OS X. The challenge is that neither can natively WRITE to the other, so while you can mount and read an NTFS drive on a Mac, you cannot natively write to that drive. To do that, you need a third party driver like ParagonNTFS, as Dave indicated. There is also a Paragon version for Windows that lets Windows write to HFS+ drives. I have no idea how well that version works, but Paragon NTFS is very good. You can also share the ability to read/write drives between Windows and Macs by choosing a format both can read and write, like FAT32 or ExFAT. Those formats are not terribly efficient on either system, but do allow you to move the drive back and forth if you need to.

As for your plan, you don't need to look for an HFS+ formatted drive, just get a drive with the interface you need (USB, Firewire, whatever) and then format it when your Mac arrives. I would also hold off on doing anything with your data until your Mac arrives, then attach both the new drive and the NTFS drive to the Mac, format the 4TB HFS+ and copy from he 1TB to the 4TB at that time. That way you know that what you have on the 4TB will work.

 

[jabromusic]

OK, so here's the background to the problem. Microsoft created a unique file structure called NTFS and uses it as the default on Windows machines. Apple also created a file structure for drives called HFS+ and uses that as the default for OS X. The challenge is that neither can natively WRITE to the other, so while you can mount and read an NTFS drive on a Mac, you cannot natively write to that drive. To do that, you need a third party driver like ParagonNTFS, as Dave indicated. There is also a Paragon version for Windows that lets Windows write to HFS+ drives. I have no idea how well that version works, but Paragon NTFS is very good. You can also share the ability to read/write drives between Windows and Macs by choosing a format both can read and write, like FAT32 or ExFAT. Those formats are not terribly efficient on either system, but do allow you to move the drive back and forth if you need to.

As for your plan, you don't need to look for an HFS+ formatted drive, just get a drive with the interface you need (USB, Firewire, whatever) and then format it when your Mac arrives. I would also hold off on doing anything with your data until your Mac arrives, then attach both the new drive and the NTFS drive to the Mac, format the 4TB HFS+ and copy from he 1TB to the 4TB at that time. That way you know that what you have on the 4TB will work.

thanks jake! the 4TB G-Drive that i was going to order is already pre-formatted for HFS+ and has both USB 3.0 and thunderbolt connections