Which external hdd for osx and windows?

bigredshark said:
I've used multiple external drives, memory sticks and NAS devices with my pc and mac day in day out and never ever had any compatibility issues. if the reviews are custoemr posted ones, likely they're just idiots...

Recommendation are difficult, Lacie make fast and cheap kit generally but reliability could maybe be questioned (I have friends who use them professionally and they've seen a couple fail)

I'd be tempted by seagate maybe, they're pretty good these days in my experience and you probably can't go far wrong with western digital.

But certainly assuming for format it as FAT it should work flawlessly on both platforms

last tip, if you're mac or pc has firewire 800, it's really worth getting a drive that supports it!

oh! and avoid dual disk raid0 setups in my opinion (a fair number of high capacity drives) as they're just doubling the risk of data loss, better multiple smaller drives...
Click to expand...

wd make great drives, but lacie are the only ones i have used that DO REALLY work with mac and pc
 
Just received by Mybook Pro 500GB today, its more silver/grey than white! lol
Other than that its working fine, have formatted it to MAC OS extended (journal) and using macdrive on windows pc. What the different between journaled and not journaled?
So am i right in thinking their back up software is not too good and i should get super duper instead?
 
I think the choice with widest OS support will be a NAS box, the partition type on the NAS doesn't matter as the NAS box just communicates over LAN.

That way you can use Mac OS, Windows and Linux to store data onto it.

Windows -FAT32 can be accessed in Mac OS and Linux, but limitation on file size

Windows NTFS, can't be accessed on mac or linux (latter not fully working/supported) but will allow >4gb files.

Mac partition, cannot be accessed by windows. Don't know if Linux supports mac partition

Linux EXT2/3 partition, cannot be accessed by windows. Don't know Mac OS supports mac partition.
 
Last edited:
squiffy said:
Mac partition, cannot be accessed by windows. Don't know if Linux supports mac partition

Linux EXT2/3 partition, cannot be accessed by windows. Don't know Mac OS supports mac partition.
Click to expand...
FYI, Linux cannot write to HFS+ partitions. Windows CAN, however, write to ext2/3 with a 3rd party driver. I use Ext2fs and it gets the job doe when dual booting.
 
james.miller said:
the 500gb WD mybook e-sata is the one im going to get shortly. stuff your firewire and usb2.0 connections, e-sata is where its at:p
Click to expand...

lol lacie do a "quadra " drive with esata fw 400, 800 and usb built in....
stick that in your pipe and smoke it.. lol
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom