Proud new Mac Owner- needs advice

Hello

I am a regularly gigging musician in South Louisiana and invested in a Macbook Pro to use with a digital live workstation for I have heard Mac is most reliable for use in this environment.

I have been a PC user for all my life at home and at work and rarely had the opportunity to gain experience with a Mac.

I bought a brand new Macbook Pro and it has OS X, and I think maybe Snow Leopard, I am not up on the difference between the two. It also has BootCamp.

Here is what I need to do.

I need to record live performances with the Mac and store them on a LaCie Firewire/USB 2 ext HDD.

And then when back at home transfer the capture and wav files to my PC to use with my very expensive Windows XP Pro based DAW (Digital Audio Workstation)

In other searches I read where this cannot be done on the extHDD if it were formatted to NTFS, only to FAT, or FAT32 which formats out to only 4gb or so. Not a solution for me.

I will have tons of gb of wav files to deal with and I need an easy to use method.

And if formatted to Mac format, the PC will not read it.

These were older posts, and I am wondering if there might be more up to date information regarding this issue.

I would not be opposed to setting up a peer-to-peer network between the PC and the Mac. I am on a router or is there a way to setup an ad-hoc network between PC and Mac?

Thanks for any information.

Snow Leopard is the version of OS X you have... 10.6 to be specific.

Your Mac can indeed format a drive of any size to FAT32. FAT32 is not capable of storing individual files of 4GB or larger.

Your case is one of individual file sizes, not the total space the files use.

If you are not dealing with 4GB and larger files, you can use FAT32.

If you are using files of that size, and maybe if not - my own personal preference for drives that are being used cross platform is to use NTFS. Along with that I'd recommend Paragon's NTFS for Mac OS X. This app will allow OS X to read/write NTFS drives/partitions. It's also on sale right now for $20, normally $40 - it's a bargain imho. (There are a couple of free options, don't recommend them myself.)

And, as always when you're talking about something related to business, you need to test out your whole setup and make sure it works before you take it out for your first gig.

If both machines are on the same network at home, then all you need to do is share the files and transfer across the network.

Ahh thanks for the clarification of the OS, good to know.

I have had my Mac for several days now and I am quite pleased with it. In time I may get a DAW for it but I can't right now and need to stick to my Win apps.

Interesting to note here...

I have a new LaCie 500gb Rugged drive, and I decided to go ahead and install it on the Mac and worry about how to move files later. The Mac is the capture device so might as well put the LaCie on it for the extra storage I am thinking.

Well I start the Install Assistant and it gave me two options, 1 of formatting strictly for Mac, and the other was a Mac/PC partition of 468gb of Mac and 32gb of Windows tho they didnt say what file system for either.

So I took the option to allow the partition and see what happens next.

Anyway, I will research Paragon's NTFS for Mac OS X. It looks like what I would need.

Too bad Mac doesn't do this natively as it would be such a great selling point for the Mac.

And, as always when you're talking about something related to business, you need to test out your whole setup and make sure it works before you take it out for your first gig.

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Absolutely!!!
The board I have can be used as a straight up mixer without the puter for recording.
But the Mac will stay home until I am absolutely comfortable and have any kinks worked out, and have full understanding of how the Mac handles folders and files and such.
I have ended up with a number of extra folders from an install on the desktop I didnt know what to do with so I created a folder and dumped them all in there until I figure things out

Thanks for the reply

Welcome to the boards from a fellow Louisianan. Where exactly are you located? We need to recruit a few more folks so we can outnumber the folks from the Metroplex. (Just kidding Bob).

BTW Rick NTFS writing is included but off by default in Snow Leopard. Although it can be enabled by a few Terminal commands some users have apparently had issues with it. All in all, Bob's suggestion is probably best for the moment.

Also, if the external is going to be the workhorse while connected to your Mac, you can use HFS. Paragon has an app that will allow Windows to read from HFS drives. So, you're options are really wide open here.

Welcome to the boards from a fellow Louisianan. Where exactly are you located? We need to recruit a few more folks so we can outnumber the folks from the Metroplex. (Just kidding Bob).

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Hello Slydude! I am from the Lafayette area. How about you?

I am fairly savvy with computers, and a neophyte Mac user but I am already comfortable with my Mac.

So if there is a procedure to get my Mac to read NTFS, I would love to at least examine the procedure to see if it would be within my capabilities to perform.

Also, if the external is going to be the workhorse while connected to your Mac, you can use HFS. Paragon has an app that will allow Windows to read from HFS drives. So, you're options are really wide open here.

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Hey thanks for the reply. Yeah I was looking at that option too.
I will be using my LaCie to store the bulk of my recordings.
I have a 340gb (I think) internal on my Macbook and my recording gear tells me I have enough space for 18 days worth of recording, so a 500gb ext drive would serve me for a long time.

On second though I found a link on google search and it requires editing a Mac file. Looks a little scary

Make your Mac read/write NTFS

There really is nothing to the edit to enable the native write ability found in SL.

That article mentions both of the free methods I alluded to above. For personal use, give them a shot. For business, important stuff, I'll stick by the recommendation for Paragon - and at their current $20 asking price - no question in my mind. While there are those that use the free options without issue, I'd suggest you do some browsing around the web about potential problems before you decide to go that route.

rickhebert said:

Hello Slydude! I am from the Lafayette area. How about you?

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I am about half way between Shreveport and Alexandria. I've been to the Lafayette Area a few times for one reason or another. Never for long enough to check out the local music scene though.

Is Prejean's still there in Lafayette - love that place - last time I was in Louisiana (a few years ago now), I had to drive back to Lafayette on my way home from New Orleans just to eat there before I left the state. Still makes my mouth water just thinking about it.