Portable hard drives (compatibility PC/Mac)

[Jonas]

How is compatibility between PC and Mac when it comes to using a portable hard drive? If you have one formatted on your PC, then move some mp3:s onto it, and would want to use it with your iBook, would that be possible?

If not, are there at least portables that could be formatted either as PC or Mac externals?

If any of the above, do you you have any suggestions for a good portable hard drive, say in the range between 80 and 250 GB, with USB 2 and possibly FireWire connections, and the choice of powering it either through the USB 2/FireWire connection or using an external power cord?

(Please be nice, I'm not good at this, as you tech guys might have noticed)

Thank you in advance,
Jonas

[JesseMiner]

How is compatibility between PC and Mac when it comes to using a portable hard drive? If you have one formatted on your PC, then move some mp3:s onto it, and would want to use it with your iBook, would that be possible?

I've only even dealt with PCs, so I'll leave this to the question for someone else to answer.

If not, are there at least portables that could be formatted either as PC or Mac externals?

If any of the above, do you you have any suggestions for a good portable hard drive, say in the range between 80 and 250 GB, with USB 2 and possibly FireWire connections, and the choice of powering it either through the USB 2/FireWire connection or using an external power cord?

Your answer lies here in the Laptop DJing thread. USB2/Firewire-powered external drives were literally just discussed yesterday.

Jesse

[Jonas]

Thanks for the link, sorry about not checking the forum thoroughly enough before posting.

/Jonas

[CafeSavoy]

Jonas, if you want to use the drive with both macs and pcs then you have to use a pc formatted drive. The smartdisk drives being discussed on the linked thread work well.

[Mr Awesomer]

if you want to use the drive with both macs and pcs then you have to use a pc formatted drive.

You need to be more specific then "pc formatted." For best compatability, one would want to format the drive as FAT32. A Mac can't write to NTFS, though it can read it.

[CafeSavoy]

if you want to use the drive with both macs and pcs then you have to use a pc formatted drive.

You need to be more specific then "pc formatted." For best compatability, one would want to format the drive as FAT32. A Mac can't write to NTFS, though it can read it.

true, true. good point. i don't think any of the pre-formatted drives are NTFS, but it's worth checking.

[Mr Awesomer]

Yeah, that's true too. I think my drive (WD) came unformated, and if I remember correctly the default option was FAT32. I had to change settings to get it to format as NTFS.

[Nima]

true, true. good point. i don't think any of the pre-formatted drives are NTFS, but it's worth checking.

Mine was pre-formatted NTFS (Western Digital 80GB). But is not one of those USB powered ones.

Nima

[Jonas]

So, are you saying that if I format the external hard drive in FAT32, I could fill it with mp3:s from an internal hard drive on a PC, then use it to dj from with an iBook, maybe make some id3-tag changes whilst using it with the iBook, and then go back using it with the PC again, copying back the changes I made to the internal drive on the PC?

And I would be able to use an NFTS formatted hard drive in the same way, dj:ing from it with an iBook, but would not be able to make changes to the files on it whilst using it with the iBook?

Jonas

[Mr Awesomer]

So, are you saying that if I format the external hard drive in FAT32, I could fill it with mp3:s from an internal hard drive on a PC, then use it to dj from with an iBook, maybe make some id3-tag changes whilst using it with the iBook, and then go back using it with the PC again, copying back the changes I made to the internal drive on the PC?

Correct.

And I would be able to use an NFTS formatted hard drive in the same way, dj:ing from it with an iBook, but would not be able to make changes to the files on it whilst using it with the iBook?

All I know is that OSX can "read" a NTFS drive. I don't what the extend of that "read" ability is. It could be a) you can just see what on the drive but can't really do anything with the data or b) you can see what's on the drive and actually use it's data.

[GemZombie]

Yeah, that's true too. I think my drive (WD) came unformated, and if I remember correctly the default option was FAT32. I had to change settings to get it to format as NTFS.

In the retail world "PC Formatted" means FAT(32). NTFS is still considered proprietary in that market.

[Jonas]

Ok, thank you guys, now I'm all set to make an informed purchase!

Jonas

[platt]

here is the question then and well this gets a tad bit techie. Of course this is "tech talk" so here it goes:

FAT32, now I was under the understanding that FAT32 couldn't handle very large volumes. I think I read somewhere that the largest it could do was around 30GB. Is that true? If so, how do you format something in FAT32 if its over that size? Can you do this without making several partitions on the drive?

thanks!

[platt]

just to add a bit of info I just found out:

Although Windows 2000 and Windows XP Professional can mount FAT32 volumes of any size, Windows 2000 and Windows XP Professional can format FAT32 volumes up to 32 GB only.

[GemZombie]

here is the question then and well this gets a tad bit techie. Of course this is "tech talk" so here it goes:

FAT32, now I was under the understanding that FAT32 couldn't handle very large volumes. I think I read somewhere that the largest it could do was around 30GB. Is that true? If so, how do you format something in FAT32 if its over that size? Can you do this without making several partitions on the drive?

thanks!

This is interesting actually. Technically XP can only format a volume that is 32GB or less (you can take a 80gig volume and partition it in 3 separate areas to use all the space). However, the Maximum FAT32 Volume Size is 8 Terabytes. XP cannot format this, but other OS's can. XP can read and write to FAT32 volumes that are larger than 32GB.

I know this to be true, because my 80GB firelite drive is formatted as FAT32. Who knows how they actually format it, and who cares. That's one reason drives larger that 20GB must come pre-formatted I'm sure.

More Information - Microsoft XP Resource Kit