External Hard Drive File System compatible with Windows and OSX

Dysgraphia

I recently got a 27" iMac, about 2 months or so.

I've been using a 4GB flash drive and reformatted in the iMac as a FAT32 file system. It worked fine, but when I deleted stuff from it, it created some sort of invisible 'recycling bin' which was visible in Windows. Apart from that it, I could transfer/copy/paste stuff from Windows to Mac and Mac to Windows.

Recently I reformatted a 500 GB external HD to the same file system [FAT32]. But when I tried copying an archive that was about 5 gbs, it said that it was too big for the file system. I'm guessing the file system doesn't support large transfers, but it still holds 500gb as the capacity.

Is there any filesystem that serves for both Windows and Mac, fully compatable?

Thanks.

Dysgraphia

Found my answer on MacRumors:

Now for facts, rather than uninformed opinions:

FAT32

* Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
* No individual file larger than 4GB.

NTFS

* Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
* Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
* To Read/Write NTFS from Leopard: Install MacFUSE and NTFS-3G. You can install both with NTFS-3G for Mac OS X.
* To Read/Write NTFS from Snow Leopard: Guide: Enable native NTFS Read/Write in Snow Leopard
* (Be aware that some are of the opinion that enabling native NTFS in SL is unstable/unreliable, and favor the MacFuse/NTFS-3G method for Snow Leopard)

HFS

* Read/Write HFS from native Mac OS X
* To Read/Write HFS from Windows, Install MacDrive or HFSExplorer

Source: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=987484&highlight=file+system

fanglekai

I have several external drives. The one I use to go between my mac and my laptop is FAT32. The 4gb limitation hasn't been a problem for me so far, but it's the only way to go between them as far as I know.

Dysgraphia

^
I've been using that but the problem is that I usually copy archives over the 4 GB limit.

[NTFS for Mac] lets you copy and paste back and forth between a mac and a regular NTFS ex HD.

It's awesome.

fanglekai

Ah I'd never tried to copy and paste like that before. I need to access my files and do stuff with them, so having them as read-only would kind of suck for me.

Dysgraphia

Yeah.

It's really painful when I download some Bluray movie on my iMac at home and then figure out I can't copy it to a flash and watch it at a friend's house.

You oughta try it out.

Dfg

Never really had that issues. Except for 8Gb USB Thumbdrive. I use NTFS for portable HDD's. It's way better than FAT32. Since, I move HD movies from one computer to another, I really can't be bothered with FAT. Almost all my system I use are Windows based.

fanglekai

Yeah it's the switching with the mac that makes NTFS a problem. My flash drive is NTFS. I have a smaller one for documents, but the 16gb one is NTFS.

1337

There are programs that allow you to have full NTFS read/write/format capabilities. NTFS for Mac like Dysgraphia mentioned is fully cracked on demonoid and it should solve the problem.

fanglekai

Damn I wish i had bothered to read up on that before. I can't reformat my external hdd drive at the moment, but I"ll look into that for my flash drive at least.

Dysgraphia

1337 wrote: »

There are programs that allow you to have full NTFS read/write/format capabilities. NTFS for Mac like Dysgraphia mentioned is fully cracked on demonoid and it should solve the problem.

It's on just about every filehost sharing service too, RS, MU, HF, etc...

I'll try uploading a few later.

It's a must have!!!