External Hard Drive File Formats...

[jonathan_phang]

Hello All,

been talking to my bro-in-law and he'd like to get an external hard drive to use at home to back up photos etc. His main computer is a Mac, which doubles as a TV, in the lounge. However, due to his love of GTA, I built a PC for upstairs for him (cos I'm nice) but anyway - I was thinking of getting the Western Digital MyBook for him to use...

BUT. What considerations do i need to take when talking about usage on both MacOS and the PC? I'm guessing that NTFS wont be usable on the Mac?

If i reformatted the drive (can i do this natively without extra software?), then can that be accessable on the PC?

Finally, are there any issues with Macs and USB2.0 drives? I read somewhere that they were a bit temperamental. The firewire version is that bit more expensive, so if USB2 is ok, then I'd rather that really.

Thanks for answers to any of the above

JP

[aidanjt]

The Mac *should* have fat32 support, that's usually the default filesystem externals are formatted with at the factory.

[jonathan_phang]

Even if it doesnt come factory formatted as FAT32, then I can just format from the Windows box right? So as long as hes not looking to store DVD images then FAT32 should be ok right?

Also, is there some limit to the size of a partition for a mac. ie. If the drive i buy is 250gb, will i have to break it down into smaller parts? I'm sure i remember reading something about that in an article.

But any more hints would be great

JP

[daniel.phillips]

I just got a WD MyBook and it comes as FAT32. Trouble is you can't move files larger than 4GB (I think thats the limit...) And yeah you can reformat it to NTFS but the Mac won't read it (At least I don't think so seing as NTFS is Windows NT File System)