I recently setup my Mac, I am wondering a few things though...

I have a externall 500gb HDD I use with my PC. It is NTFS formatted. If I plug it into the MAC, will I be able to transfer files from it to my MAC OS Extended (Journalled) drive? Will I be able to save files to the drive? Will I be able to use it for anything if I left it plugged in?

-------->>> And my big question on that too, is why or why not? How does that interface together? I read that I can maybe connect to my PCs over the network and transfer files, even though its NTFS drives? So does the boot drive just have to be MAC format? What are the drawbacks of mixing different format options, how does it work together, ** Will I hurt anything or mess anything up? **

How does FAT 32 play into all of this?

Sorry thats pretty broad and a lot of questions, but please help me understand this. It would be greatly appreciated!

I have a western Digital MyBook 320Gb External HD, and the way I have it set up is half and half. One half (160Gb) is formatted in HFS+, for my Mac usage, and the other half is formatted in NTFS (for windows usage). Now under windows you wont be able to see the HFS+ partition by default, because Windows cannot read this type of partition table. Under OS X however, you can read NTFS partitions, but by default you wont be able to write to them.

FAT 32 is a common partition table format which both OS X, and Windows can read, and write to, however there are some limitations. For example, the highest amount of storage you can have under FAT32, is 32Gb, and no single file can be larger than 4Gb. This will be a problem, especially if you want to have ISO files. However, it is also not recommended because writing OS X files in the same partition as Windows files, is just not good practise to begin with, and could pose incompatibility problems or other unknown issues down the road. I wouldn't do it, just to be on the safe side.

There is a software called Macdrive, and version 7 allows you to be able to read and write to HFS+ partitions from within windows XP/Vista. I think you might want to give this a try. Besides the obvious reason for its existance, its excellent for emergency purposes as well if you need a quick file/document from your Mac partition to your windows partition for an application that perhaps only works on Windows. Its pretty good software neverthless.

Network sharing is no problem, a Mac can write to the network shared folder thats in a windows operating system no problem, and you will be able to read and copy over the files from the shared network on a Windows PC, and on to your Mac, and work on it. My Parents and my sister use PC's, and I use a Mac, but I can still send, read, and receive files flawlessly from the home network.

Thanks for the great info. I really appreciate it. I have three questions from what you said:

1.) So apparently the formatting of the drive has no affect on the files or anything? So I could move a bunch of PC files to my external NTFS drive, then plug in my external NTFS drive and move all those files to the mac HFS+ drive (ie music, video, pictures, etc.)?

2.) If I did a 50/50 partition on my external drive like you mentioned, then I could write HFS+ files with Mac to the drive, and then in windows, using the software you mentioned, I could read those files off the HFS+ partition? Is there a performance loss doing that, or would it be best to then, in windows, copy files from the HFS+ partition over to the NTFS one? (again... does this affect the files at all, or does it not matter moving them between different drive formatting types?)

3.) I have a question though on the network thing. You said a Mac cannot write to NTFS. How is it, then, that you can send files to people on PC's using NTFS over the network, if the Mac can't write to that drive? And how can a PC send files to a Mac HFS drive, if the PC by default cannot write to an HFS drive? And how can a PC even SEE the HFS+ drive on the network if by default it can't even read it?

Yes, you could move a bunch of files to your external NTFS drive, and then copy them to a HFS+ partition, however, the time it takes to transfer file A from NTFS to HFS+ would take longer in time than to transfer file A from NTFS to NTFS, and same goes with HFS+. File B would take longer to transfer from HFS+ to NTFS if (the only method to do this is using MacFuse), than it would if you were to transfer file B from HFS+ to HFS+. If you aren't going to be using the windows partition for any major work, then I suggest you work mostly in OS X, to save trouble of going back and forth to beign with. I have a Windows partition to save games/movies, and what not, but they are only temporary, until I encode them to MP4 and into my HFS+ partition.



Yes, using MacDrive, you can read and write to HFS+ partition(s). There will be a slight performance loss, but it will be barely noticible if not even worth mentioning, because the software will have to adjust the partition tables during transfers. However all this happens within matter of microseconds, so you will not notice it at all. I dont recommend transferring from HFS+ to NTFS...if anything it should be the other way around, simple because of compatibility issues. MacFuse will allow you to do this, but it is not yet in a stable form, and I've never done this as well, becuase I have 95% of the things I need from Music to pictures to documents and all the applications files, etc already in the HFS+ partition. The only reason why I have the NTFS partition is for temporary transfer location for files from Windows to OS X.



It is possible to make both of the OS's inter-read/writable, but the reason why both of them cant do it by defualt is strictly becuase of proprietory reasons, thats all. Generally speaking though, OS X gives you a little more leeway because atleast you will be able to read the NTFS side, but in Windows, you wont even be able to see the HFS+ partition. It wont even appear in the "My Computer" listing of drives. When dealing with networks, OS X has a built in software that allows the reading and writing to NTFS drives, but it works strictly only for network reasons, this is why you can seamlessly transfer files between OS X, and Windows, and also why I said it is posisble to make both OS'es inter-read/writable. Windows, also has the same feature, and this is why you can write to OS X's partition table, however both operating systems cannot write to boot by default...this feature is not added in windows, and is locked in OS X. MacDrive adds this feature to Windows, and MacFuse unlocks this feature in OS X. Again, the same principle on the amount of time it takes to transfer files between NTFS and HFS+ partition also apples to transferring files between a Windows PC and a Mac. If you were to transfer files from a Mac to a Mac through a shared network, the transfer speed would be vastly faster than transfer files between a Windows PC, and a Mac.

Wow, thanks EFI! You're really thorough, and really really helpful. I just learned a lot.

Do you mind if I ask you another question? I was messing with the network to my PC trying to figure it out. Well, from my PC I was able to access the MAC and copy a file to it, and from it.

However, from my MAC, I could see my PC on the list, but when I tried to go to a folder on it, I got this message:

"The Alias [Alias-name] could not be opened, because the original item cannot be found"

However I can use my other PCs to access that PC via the network, and I could even select if I wanted to go to the C or D drive... its just that once I selected a drive/folder to open, I got the above message.

Any ideas?

There are some steps you can do to fix this. One, make sure your directories in windows are the same, and are not rearranged while your Mac is still having the last network (shared folder) window open, this could cause that messge. If that doesnt work, you can try manually adding the network adress into finder. In order to do that, go to Finder's Go menu, and click connect to server. Then use the url link smb://windowsComputerName/shareName. Substitute windows computer name, and shared folder name in the link. This is ofcourse assuming those Windows PC's are in your home network, or else it wont work. If that for some reason doesnt work, try smb://PC.IP.address.here/shareName, and substitute the necessary aliases with the PC's. The first method failed me once, but this second one always works for me.

awesome, thanks!

Ok another question about MacDrive.

Right now I have a dual boot on a Hackintosh (ie it's a PC running the Mac). MacDrive is awesome! I can see all my Mac discs.

I messed around with it and couldn't see any drawback to writing to the HFS+ partition through windows? I even started my video editor (adobe premiere) and made a project on the mac HFS+ drive, worked on it, rendered it, etc. I transferred files back and forth. I then went back to OS X and accessed everything just fine.

So it appears that I would do well to have:

- NTFS Boot Drive for PC/Windows
- HFS+ Boot Drive for MAC/OS X

And then format my extra internal storage drives to HFS+ partition so that they are fully accessible (read/write) from both the PC and the MAC. Is there any danger or drawback to this? I couldn't see any from what I did.

If that works, that is awesome, because then Windows would have its own native drive for system files and all apps etc, and so would the Mac. And then, thanks to MacDrive, the rest of my system could be completely shared drives that are HFS+ formatted, where all my music/photos/documents/videos & video editing files would be stored.

Does this sound like it would work well? Any problems/drawbacks/consquences/dangers? Something I'm missing?


Thanks again EFI you have been incredibely helpful and generous with your time and knowledge.

Did you mean to say extra external storage?



It will work well, but I definately dont recommend doing this with an "internal" storage drive(s), because if you had to format it for somereason, you could potentially accidently destroy all your saved data on both the Windows and OS X partitions, as well as the extra interal partition space.

Your best bet would be to format your entire external HD (the 500Gb one) to HFS+, and then just use Macdrive in windows to access it. Problem solved. Then you can work without a problem in both Windows and OS X, and if something goes wrong with your internal HD, you can just format it knowing that all your important data is stored externally, so there is no damage done to them. Then you would just have to install windows, and then re-install MacDrive, and your back on track.

No, I did in fact mean extra INTERNAL drives. I edit a lot of video and all of my HDDs generally stay near capacity. The following are all my internal drives:


- Seagate 500gb IDE (I'd use this as my OS X install drive & apps; HFS+)
- Seagate 160gb SATA (I'd use this as C:\ for Windows system files & apps; NTFS)

- Seagate 300gb SATA (I'd use this for storage of pics/docs/music/video editing on both Mac & Windows; HFS+)
- Seagate 300gb SATA - a 2nd one (I'd use this for storage of pics/docs/music/video editing on both Mac & Windows; HFS+)
- Seagate 400gb SATA (I'd use this for storage of pics/docs/music/video editing on both Mac & Windows; HFS+)

All of those are internal. I also have an external 500gb drive. OS X and Windows are on the same computer, but each have a dedicated HDD. Again, my computer is Hackintosh. Specs are in my sig.

So it sounds like you are saying that there is no real stability/performance issues or anything with using the HFS+ file partition under windows (via MacDrive) for all 3 of my extra internal HDD drives? No concerns over this? That would just make it easy to access the same stored files through Mac & Windows and be able to read/write to the drives through either OS. Windows would, of course, be installed on a dedicated NTFS formatted drive. OS X is on the IDE drive as it is more compatible when setting up the hacked version.

So do you think that will work well for me?

Thanks EFI!

Yep, it should work fine.

Thanks EFI! So I had another question related, that I posted in this thread, and I thought you might have some information on it as well:

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=50309

It is in regards to taking my 2x300gb drives and setting them up in the config described above as a RAID system. I am wondering if that would work and be accessible in both Windows & OSX as a RAID setup?

It should be accessable, however I myself havent done a Raid0 setup yet. If you were to do one though, do it through disk utility, its much better that way. Plus it all comes down to whether MacDrive can read raid setups, which again, I havent tried, so I cant give a definitive answer though. Theoretically yes, it should work, but I havent tried it.