Or do you need to buy specific ones for each? Looking at getting a Seagate Expansion 1TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive.

format it as exfat?

Mac can read and write to ntfs if you connect via smb://****IPaddress****. It’s how I transfer files between mac and pc in work, but I’m still on 10.4, so that may work differently these days.

Hmm, not sure what any of that means unfortunately!

good luck then! 😆

ExFat is a file system, basically when you first get a new drive you need to decide what file system you want to use. There are various choices. NTFS is standard for PC, you can use FAT32, but that’s got a 4GB file limit. Mac is standard is HFS+, hence the confusion between the 2 systems, but it can be overcome..

A HFS+ Mac can connect, and read and write to an NTFS pc if you connect to it via smb. On mac desktop apple K then type smb://10.0.0.** (mostly likey, it’s your computer or HDD’s IP address, you need to find out what that is.)

Tbh I’m probably over complicating things, you just need to pick the file system and plug it into your computer (I’ve just realised you are just talking about a USB HDD, so plug and play, format it as Exfat when you get it.)

Or just use dropbox.

Does osx not play nicely with NTFS now? Even my Linux install is happily talking to a NTFS external drive (albeit not as fast as it could be) so osx must be ok with it?

chvck – Member
Does osx not play nicely with NTFS now?

Dunno tbh, I’m in the dark ages when it comes to Macs! 😆 It may well do as I suspect it might, hence my disclaimer.

hardcorefirstgeninteltilidie! 😆 well seems like it!

Pretty sure you can just format it as NTFS on the PC and then read and write from both machines…?!

I’ve never had a problem just plugging one in and using it. You can re-format it if you want, but given they’re already formatted to plug and play on a PC then if you’re unsure about formats if it works when you plug it in to the mac then don’t meddle with it.

The only real benefit of a mac-specific drive would be having the addition of a thunderbolt connection which can have benefits if you’re doing really data-heavy things like video editing (they can also be daisy-chained if you have lots of drives). But we edit in HD in ours and USB3 works well enough.

What you will tend to get is bits of proprietary PC focused software preloaded on the drive, but just delete it

To answer the question, just format it as exFAT. There are instructions for this online.

You could format it as mac’s own file system (HFS) but it’s wont work properly with windows machines.
If you use the windows file system (NTFS), it won’t work properly with Mac OS. There are ways around the mac (3rd party software and hacks) but it’s not worth the hassle. You might use this if you absolutely needed to use NTFS drives for some reason, but if you have the choice this is not a good option.
FAT32 will also work, but the 4gb file limit is annoying.

Just use exFAT.

My first mac had os 10.4, think that was in 2006. Seosam you are seriously retro.

Seosam you are seriously retro.

I started in here when they first bought the machines, but redundancy after redundancy means zero investment on that side of things.

Plus, upgrading isn’t particularly needed in here, we’re on CS3, which is as far back as you would want go without losing anything, feature wise, upgrading would just add bells and whistles that aren’t really required, so I’ve no great issue with it. I’ve got later version on my home computer, so i’m happy enough i’m still current. The version of the OS isn’t particularly relevant, though I wouldn’t like to go beyond 10.4. (I’ve used macs since os8, so I know the history!)

Amazing, thanks for the help people! 🙂

Ok, so I’m about to re-format as an exFAT. Does it matter what unit size I choose?

So I went for 4096 as the interwebs said that this is pretty standard.

It’s now formatted to exFAT, but the Mac laptop isn’t seeing it. Is there something else I need to do?

My inlaws just bought a seagate external drive that specifically said its easy to transfer between mac and windows, it installed some drivers on the mac, I presume to help it read the windows file system it was set up with from the box.

It’s either a problem with the cluster size (I think 4096 is too much, should be 1024), or because you didn’t disconnect it properly.

I assume the drive appears in the mac disk utility app ?
If there is no data on it yet, reformat it using this tool instead. Or if you must use windows to format it, select 128AUS for the cluster size setting.

Apparently you need to be very strict at avoiding premature unplugging…

Superficial – Member 
It’s either a problem with the cluster size (I think 4096 is too much, should be 1024), or because you didn’t disconnect it properly.

1024/1K is tiny.

Default recommended sizes vary on the partition type and the volume size.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/140365

Cluster/Allocation Unit sizes determine the size of the smallest block of data a file is divided into.

Performance is best with larger clusters due to lower seek times. Larger volumes benefit from or even require larger cluster sizes.

Space is wasted if files cannot be divided into the cluster sizes evenly. Many small files but large clusters will waste space. If the files are mostly large it’s less of an issue and performance is better.

Modern large drives have less of an issue with cluster waste.

Apparently you need to be very strict at avoiding premature unplugging…

Still amazes me the amount of people who don’t give a crap about dismounting external drives. See it all the time at work with USB drives and keys being yanked out without dismount. Then they wonder why the disc needs checking for errors, but then they ignore that, then wonder why everything’s corrupted. Oh well, they just order a new one. 🙄