quick question RE transferring files

[Se7ven]

Hey guys, I just backed up all my files from my PC to a ext hd so I could play get them to my mac.

Now a lot of it was video files and when I played them straight from the ext hdd, it was quite "jumpy", it wouldnt play for more than 10 seconds without a quick pause, obviously unwatchable.

So now im trying to transfer them to my Mac and see if there is any difference, only problem is its transferring at about 1MB/s and there is about 600GB of data..

Any idea what's going on? im completely new to Macs lol

edit: im guessing it was something to do with it being USB, because when I replaced it for the firewire cable it was MUCh faster.

 

[Se7ven]

also, is there a keyboard shortcut for cut+paste?

oh and it seems i cant even manage to transfer the files as the USB connection for my hard drive keeps dropping them re-appearing? -- edit: scratch that, replaced the USB for firewire and now its blazing

 

[Se7ven]

the external hard drive is fine now, although I am sure it is still NTFS, which I remember reading Mac can read but not write?


How do I go about formatting it to the correct format for read, write etc?