Formatting external HDD for Mac and PC

claypigeon101 · 12 Aug 2011 at 12:18

Hi guys, I'm gonna buy an external HDD for backing up mainly media files but also important docs etc between my Mac and PC,

do I need to buy a specific kind of HDD, or (more likely) do I have to format it in a certain way to read and write to both systems?

As you'd imagine, security is the key as I've got thousands of tracks that need backing up that I'd die if I lost, so as long as the format isn't unstable between the two platforms causing data loss etc

Any advice?
Thanks

L33 · 12 Aug 2011 at 13:35

fat32 is fully supported by both, but has serious limitations (max filesize etc).
I personally formatted my external to NTFS, and use the paragon NTFS driver on my mac, works perfectly.

icedbullet · 12 Aug 2011 at 13:40

I use a seagate freeagent goflex which came with paragon NTFS drivers so you can use it on both mac and pc. It works great.

JonnyGLC · 12 Aug 2011 at 14:09

Depends how you want to do it, you can install the NTFS driver onto the mac or you can install the Mac drivers onto the PC. The latter costs though!

Nismo · 12 Aug 2011 at 14:25

Wouldn't exFAT solve the problem, external drive can be formatted to that which both MAC SL and Windows can read?

ninja2000 · 12 Aug 2011 at 14:33

I always use exFat, works perfectly