Mac/Windows USB hard drive question
Mar 4, 2007, 9:00 pm
#1
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Mac/Windows USB hard drive question
Hi folks,
Got a question that I'm having trouble with tonight.
I just bought an iMac to do some basic video editing and I would like to back up the project to a USB Hard drive. The iMovie project is a bit over 16 gigabytes with all of the individual components.
I bought a USB 300 GB hard drive and I was also hoping to use this drive to move files between my iMac and my Windows XP machine.
From what I'm finding out, the USB hard drive is formatted FAT32 and the iMac will not allow anything to be written over 4 GB. If I format the drive as NTFS, the iMac won't be able to write to it at all.
Has anybody developed a workaround to this USB hard drive problem short of setting up a network to move files between Mac and PC?
Thasnk for any help!!
Got a question that I'm having trouble with tonight.
I just bought an iMac to do some basic video editing and I would like to back up the project to a USB Hard drive. The iMovie project is a bit over 16 gigabytes with all of the individual components.
I bought a USB 300 GB hard drive and I was also hoping to use this drive to move files between my iMac and my Windows XP machine.
From what I'm finding out, the USB hard drive is formatted FAT32 and the iMac will not allow anything to be written over 4 GB. If I format the drive as NTFS, the iMac won't be able to write to it at all.
Has anybody developed a workaround to this USB hard drive problem short of setting up a network to move files between Mac and PC?
Thasnk for any help!!
Mar 4, 2007, 9:12 pm
#2
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The 4GB limitation applies to each individual file. You mentioned that your entire project is 16GB in size, but are there actually files in your project that are larger than 4GB?
Mar 4, 2007, 9:15 pm
#3
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Sydney, Australia
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The problem with failes larger that 4Gb is a limitation of FAT32 and unfortunantly, by default, Mac OS X does not write to a NTFS volume although it can read it.
There are some linux based NTFS drivers that also work on the Mac, but you need to compile these locally and edit some core system files. Your on your own there.
If you need to transfer things between both machines, your best option is to format the drives into a variety of paritions, obviously formatting one FAT32 and calling it 'Transfer'.
Failing that, you can also install the Virtual Machine from Parallels <http://www.parallels.com/> which can mount your NTFS drive succesfully and share files between the two operating systems.
Mar 4, 2007, 10:49 pm
#4
Formally known as reinmedia
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A couple things.
1) You can re-format your USB drive using the Disk Utility. Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility. This will fix any problems you will have with writing files to the drive
2) If you are serious about editing video, you need to be aware that USB is not a great interface for outputing / storing video. The transfer rate is not high enough and you will more than likely experience some dropped frames. Firewire is the best of the economical solution for editing on external drives. Just a heads up though.
1) You can re-format your USB drive using the Disk Utility. Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility. This will fix any problems you will have with writing files to the drive
2) If you are serious about editing video, you need to be aware that USB is not a great interface for outputing / storing video. The transfer rate is not high enough and you will more than likely experience some dropped frames. Firewire is the best of the economical solution for editing on external drives. Just a heads up though.
Mar 4, 2007, 11:24 pm
#5
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I think the OP wants to use the USB solution to backup and move files, not necessarily use the USB drive as the base filesystem to edit with/upon.
Mar 5, 2007, 6:56 am
#7
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Mar 5, 2007, 7:11 am
#8
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what if he connects the drive to the pc, and connects to the pc via smb?
or, what if he installs 2003 server on a box and uses file services for macintosh.
Those are the only things i can think of that might possibly work.
or, what if he installs 2003 server on a box and uses file services for macintosh.
Those are the only things i can think of that might possibly work.
Mar 5, 2007, 7:58 am
#9
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yes, yes
So, I found about a 10% drop in transfer rates using usb2.0, compared to FW on an external drive I use. I tried it on both a pc, and the mac.
What I ended up doing, was very simply creating a second partition on the external, USING the MAC to create an HFS files system partition. This is just for backing up the mac, which the external HD is connected to all the time. I can then use the drive to backup items on the PC, of course it writes to the NTFS partition, (maybe I left it at FAT32, cannot recall)
If I need items on the PC, that are on the MAC HFS partition, I transfer them over the network, but since that partition is mostly idvd, imovie, and mac system backups, I never ever really do that.
The disk utility software on the mac works fine for creating the second partition.
What I ended up doing, was very simply creating a second partition on the external, USING the MAC to create an HFS files system partition. This is just for backing up the mac, which the external HD is connected to all the time. I can then use the drive to backup items on the PC, of course it writes to the NTFS partition, (maybe I left it at FAT32, cannot recall)
If I need items on the PC, that are on the MAC HFS partition, I transfer them over the network, but since that partition is mostly idvd, imovie, and mac system backups, I never ever really do that.
The disk utility software on the mac works fine for creating the second partition.
Mar 5, 2007, 8:59 am
#10
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Thanks for all the great replies!
I think that my primary need right now is just to back up the Mac. I'm kind of a nervous nellie when it comes to back ups. I think that I'm going to format the external hard drive as Mac HFS and just copy the iMovie projects over.
This will let me sleep at night for this project
I like the solution for a bit later involving the parallels solution. Maybe not on the iMac, but I am really considering buying a PowerBook Pro when Leopard comes out later this year. I would probably goose it up with maximum RAM and run Mac and Windows on it.
The place where I bought the Imac has a good trade in policy or I'll Ebay the iMac.
Again, thanks for the replies...you folks are great!
I think that my primary need right now is just to back up the Mac. I'm kind of a nervous nellie when it comes to back ups. I think that I'm going to format the external hard drive as Mac HFS and just copy the iMovie projects over.
This will let me sleep at night for this project
I like the solution for a bit later involving the parallels solution. Maybe not on the iMac, but I am really considering buying a PowerBook Pro when Leopard comes out later this year. I would probably goose it up with maximum RAM and run Mac and Windows on it.
The place where I bought the Imac has a good trade in policy or I'll Ebay the iMac.
Again, thanks for the replies...you folks are great!