I'm a new Mac user with one MacBook (my primary computer) and several PCs (the rest of my family and work machines) in my home. I want to get a 1-2TB external hard drive that I can use for automated Time Machine backups and for manually backing up and transferring files between the Mac and all the PCs. I'm assuming there is a way to partition a drive so it can do both, but I am unclear on the different file systems as well as how Time Machine is different than standard manual backups. What is the best way to set up a new drive in order to do this. I have seen some of steps online in pieces, but would love to get steps from someone how has done this before I get the drive and Time Machine configured. Thanks!
Help for partitioning external drive for Time Machine and PC use
- Thread starter wolfov
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Welcome to the Mac Forums.
This really should be in the "Other Hardware" forum but we'll answer your questions here.
You can partition the 1 or 2 TB drive into two partitions; one for Time Machine, the other for common storage of files.
The Time Machine partition must be formatted as the Mac HFS Extended Journaled File System or it will not work. The second partition may be formatted as FAT-32 (read and write from your Mac and a PC) or NTFS (read and write from PC, read only from Mac but with driver, read and write)
A FAT-32 partition has two disadvantages: Cluster slack (wasted space) and a single file size limit of ~ 4 GB.
The choice is yours for the common partition. If you do not have large files (video, movies, etc) to store on it, then FAT-32 should be OK although there will be some wasted space. If you have large files to store, then you'll need to format it as NTFS and use a third party driver to have read and write capability from OS X.
Additionally, OS X Snow Leopard has the ability to read and write to a NTFS partition or drive, however, it is not turned on by default. There are several ways to turn it on - the best is a small free utility which does it for you.
Hopefully this answered some of your questions. If you need more help on this, post back to this same thread.
This really should be in the "Other Hardware" forum but we'll answer your questions here.
You can partition the 1 or 2 TB drive into two partitions; one for Time Machine, the other for common storage of files.
The Time Machine partition must be formatted as the Mac HFS Extended Journaled File System or it will not work. The second partition may be formatted as FAT-32 (read and write from your Mac and a PC) or NTFS (read and write from PC, read only from Mac but with driver, read and write)
A FAT-32 partition has two disadvantages: Cluster slack (wasted space) and a single file size limit of ~ 4 GB.
The choice is yours for the common partition. If you do not have large files (video, movies, etc) to store on it, then FAT-32 should be OK although there will be some wasted space. If you have large files to store, then you'll need to format it as NTFS and use a third party driver to have read and write capability from OS X.
Additionally, OS X Snow Leopard has the ability to read and write to a NTFS partition or drive, however, it is not turned on by default. There are several ways to turn it on - the best is a small free utility which does it for you.
Hopefully this answered some of your questions. If you need more help on this, post back to this same thread.
NTFS and Mac
Thanks - this is incredibly helpful! I will give it a try. What is the driver that I can use to write to NTFS drives from my Mac, as this may also help me be able to use some of my old portable storage devices as well for file transfers.
Thanks - this is incredibly helpful! I will give it a try. What is the driver that I can use to write to NTFS drives from my Mac, as this may also help me be able to use some of my old portable storage devices as well for file transfers.
- Joined
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- Your Mac's Specs
- 2017 27" iMac, 10.5" iPad Pro, iPhone 8, iPhone 11, iPhone 12 Mini, Numerous iPods, Monterey
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