Should I reformat external hard drives for a Mac?
September 23, 2010 12:41 PM Subscribe
Should I format my new external hard drives for OS X?
I just bought two Western Digital 2TB external hard drives. Out of paranoia on my part, I'm planning on using one as a backup of the other. On the outside of the box it said that I'd have to reformat them form my computer, running OS X 10.4.11. Instead, I can see the first one easily (although the first time I plugged it in, it took about 3 minutes to show up, now it shows up quickly).
I'm not getting any errors, everything looks fine.
I'm going to be upgrading to 10.5 (or above) soon, and I'm wondering if I should reformat the hard drives just to be safe so I don't lose anything in the upgrade, or if they are fine as is.
I just bought two Western Digital 2TB external hard drives. Out of paranoia on my part, I'm planning on using one as a backup of the other. On the outside of the box it said that I'd have to reformat them form my computer, running OS X 10.4.11. Instead, I can see the first one easily (although the first time I plugged it in, it took about 3 minutes to show up, now it shows up quickly).
I'm not getting any errors, everything looks fine.
I'm going to be upgrading to 10.5 (or above) soon, and I'm wondering if I should reformat the hard drives just to be safe so I don't lose anything in the upgrade, or if they are fine as is.
Response by poster: NTFS-3g. I'll reformat- but why?
posted by Hactar at 12:47 PM on September 23, 2010
posted by Hactar at 12:47 PM on September 23, 2010
NTFS is formatted for Windows. If you don't plan on using the drive with a Windows machine, you should definitely reformat to Mac OS X Extended (Journaled). This is the Mac's native format.
posted by pmbuko at 1:02 PM on September 23, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by pmbuko at 1:02 PM on September 23, 2010 [1 favorite]
Could it be possible the first time you plugged it in it formatted it for you? 3 minutes sounds about right for a 2TB disk to be initialized for the first time. NTFS-3g is a good stable file system if you're able to read-write to it. With NTFS, you'll be able to read the drive by most other operating systems as well.
posted by samsara at 1:09 PM on September 23, 2010
posted by samsara at 1:09 PM on September 23, 2010
Natively, OS X (up to 10.6) can only read, not write to NTFS drives. 10.6 added native NTFS read/write support via some terminal commands but, from what I've read, it can be buggy.
There are third-party drivers that will enable NTFS read/write support on other versions of OS X, but unless you need to maintain compatability with Windows systems, it seems like bringing in a third-party driver just adds another potential point of failure.
posted by crosbyh at 1:11 PM on September 23, 2010 [1 favorite]
There are third-party drivers that will enable NTFS read/write support on other versions of OS X, but unless you need to maintain compatability with Windows systems, it seems like bringing in a third-party driver just adds another potential point of failure.
posted by crosbyh at 1:11 PM on September 23, 2010 [1 favorite]
NTFS-3g is a good stable file system if you're able to read-write to it.
I wouldn't recommend NTFS for OS X. You can add drivers to it to support read-write access, but a stock, unmodified installation of OS X 10.3 and later only reliably provide read access. It's perhaps best to reformat the drives to Journaled HFS+ ("Mac OS Extended (Journaled)") now, before adding any data to them.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:15 PM on September 23, 2010
I wouldn't recommend NTFS for OS X. You can add drivers to it to support read-write access, but a stock, unmodified installation of OS X 10.3 and later only reliably provide read access. It's perhaps best to reformat the drives to Journaled HFS+ ("Mac OS Extended (Journaled)") now, before adding any data to them.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:15 PM on September 23, 2010
Definitely reformat simply to eliminate any potential issues down the road. There's really no reason not to.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:32 PM on September 23, 2010
posted by Thorzdad at 1:32 PM on September 23, 2010
Blazecock: I wouldn't recommend NTFS for OS X
crosbyh: from what I've read, it can be buggy.
Ah ok, I'll keep that in mind too. I was just assuming that NTFS support for OSX has gotten to the same level it has for Linux, which is fairly stable now. Looks like Apple's BSD still has a ways to go.
posted by samsara at 1:33 PM on September 23, 2010
crosbyh: from what I've read, it can be buggy.
Ah ok, I'll keep that in mind too. I was just assuming that NTFS support for OSX has gotten to the same level it has for Linux, which is fairly stable now. Looks like Apple's BSD still has a ways to go.
posted by samsara at 1:33 PM on September 23, 2010
Best answer: Also, if you're going to format them with HFS+, don't forget to change the partition table to GUID.
posted by The Michael The at 1:54 PM on September 23, 2010
posted by The Michael The at 1:54 PM on September 23, 2010
If you have a Mac, format for Mac. If you have Windows, format for Windows. If you have Linux, format for Linux. If you have AmigaOS, format for AmigaOS. There's a pattern forming here...
posted by Biru at 3:51 PM on September 23, 2010
posted by Biru at 3:51 PM on September 23, 2010
Just an anecdote, but I've used two external drives formatted as NTFS with my MBP for a couple of years now using a third-party driver and haven't had any issues. Since they're external hard drives, you might want to use them on another computer every once in a while (your work computer, a friend's or relative's computer, etc.) and pretty much every computer out there can access NTFS drives.
posted by Thoughtcrime at 4:35 PM on September 23, 2010
posted by Thoughtcrime at 4:35 PM on September 23, 2010
Best answer: if you're planning on using these for Time Machine (after you upgrade) or using the built-in software software RAID to automatically mirror the two drives, you'll have to format them anyway. it's still best to reformat them as Mac OS X Extended Journaled anyway, though; NTFS is a great choice for Windows systems but it's not the Mac's native format. (apart from having to rely on third-party software for writing to them - the NTFS-3G stuff isn't built into OS X, you have to install it - you could potentially have an issue using the disks on other systems, or recovering/repairing them if you end up with errors.)
posted by mrg at 9:41 PM on September 23, 2010
posted by mrg at 9:41 PM on September 23, 2010
Response by poster: They're both reformatted and humming along nicely.
Thanks everyone.
posted by Hactar at 11:40 PM on September 23, 2010
Thanks everyone.
posted by Hactar at 11:40 PM on September 23, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by sharkfu at 12:44 PM on September 23, 2010