Format Rules
External Drive Storage: general information
Does the storage you want need to be portable? If not, network sharing of files is how you beat the drive format barrier (always works), or use network storage locally (this might work both ways).
Format rules - directly connected from Mac and PC:
mac format -
mac can r/w large files no problem
PC cannot see or use it
NTFS (pc) format - **
mac can read but not write
PC can r/w large files no problem
FAT32 (pc) format -
mac can r/w files, but not large files over 2 GB
PC can r/w files, but not large files over 2 GB
**There might be sw out there that allows mac to R/W to NTFS, but file sharing or net storage is the usiversal way to get around all this. When one system "shares" its storage over a network, drive format does NOT matter. It works. You should use mac or ntfs format for this shared resource, not fat32.
