---------- Original message ---------- Subject: Re: NTFS formatted carry to Sawtooth Date: Montag 12 Oktober 2009N From: "Wallace Adrian D'Alessio" <[email protected]> To: [email protected]
> On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 1:27 AM, Mac User #330250 <[email protected]> wrote: > > ---------- Original message ---------- > > Subject: Re: NTFS formatted carry to Sawtooth > > Date: Montag 12 Oktober 2009N > > From: "Wallace Adrian D'Alessio" <[email protected]> > > To: [email protected] > > > >> On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 12:03 AM, Nestamicky <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > On 11/10/09 5:49 PM, iJohn wrote: > >> >> In Leopard I can access an NTFS formatted drive in read-only mode. > >> > > >> > This really is the issue also. I need to be able to mount ntfs hds on > >> > the mac from other machines and write to them. Say, I'm working in OSX > >> > or Win, I need to be able to send stuff to either machine via the > >> > network. I know I could have a dedicated HD, formatted in fat32 that I > >> > could put in the middle, but for now I need to put this HD in the mac > >> > and be able to write to it, until such time that I can find a 1TB HD I > >> > can afford. I'm not running Leo. > >> > > >> > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ > >> > >> Depending on need and situation, a large thumb drive may be as > >> effective and avoid risking your precious NTFS data. > > > > I can assure you that NTFS-3G is a stable driver and that it will most > > certainly NOT violate your data. It is the same driver that is available > > for Linux and has been tested by a whole community for stability. > > > > Depending on how precious your data really is... BACKUP. > > As for using Mac OS X with an internal or external NTFS formated disk - I > > would have no concern using NTFS-3G. > > > > Just stick to the one rule - if you ever corrupt the file system (a > > system freeze would be such a case) - remove the drive immediately and > > have it checked from a Windows system. > > _______________________________________________ > > It was not the software I was questioning. I have no experience with > that. You should definitely try NTFS-3G. The driver is really great. And it is always good to have read-write access to external drivers that are NTFS formated. (In case all your friends have Windows-PCs.) > what happens though are other, perhaps unpredictable situations > where the OS fails to parse the NTFS formatting. This stuff happens. > things fail. Not the OS parses the formatting, the driver does. And as I said, NTFS-3G is really well developed. Don't be afraid. > If on "must" have a drive understandable cross platform > then FAT 32 has shown to be less of a problem. FAT32 has very limited features. FAT was invented when 128 kilobytes were a huge amount of data. Now 128 Gigabytes (134,217,728 kilobytes) isn't very much. New drives are usually at least 250 GB, mostly 500 GB to 1 TB. My internal hard drive is 2 TB. FAT is definitely the wrong file system for such drives. Microsoft has "invented" exFAT to remove these shortcommings of FAT12/16/32, but exFAT isn't widely used yet. NTFS is definitely more common today. And with NTFS-3G it no longer represents a barrier to non-Windows users. > If one is installing a > drive into a Mac I feel it is better and preferable to have a drive > that is in a native Mac format. I fully agree. But at the same time I know that permanently using an NTFS formatted drive would not destroy everything just like that. In the long run I would go for HFS+ on Mac OS, for NTFS on Windows and for Ext3/Ext4 in Linux. As Linux is changing permanently the first choice may become Btrfs in the future, but you never know. Too bad the only Ext2/Ext3 file system driver for Mac OS X wasn't further developed and got stuck by a version for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Also, the file system Ext3 itself is constantly updated and therefor I wouldn't recommend using Ext2 or Ext3 on any other operating system than Linux. There is a well written and *stable* Ext2/Ext3 driver for Windows though, which can be found at http://www.fs-driver.com. But there is none for Mac OS X. Also, Ext4 or Btrfs or ... isn't supported outside of Linux. NTFS on the other hand... as I said, NTFS-3G is the way to go. Very very stable. Only the file permissions are not rewarded, but for external media (or internal data that should be accessible for all users) this doesn't matter. You want interchangability between Mac OS X, Linux and Windows -- use NTFS-3G! Do not use any version of FAT, this file system is old and corrupts very easily all by itself (without system freezes and such). Never trust FAT -- especially on big drives. > My experience has been that cross platform drive swapping. > Mac-PC-Linux or whatever is just asking for a chance to learn the hard > way. I never had data loss. And I tried a lot. Just read what an OS is telling you. Windows doesn't recognize a Linux file system? "Do you want to format this drive?" -- Hell, NO! Mac OS cannot read a Windows NTFS volume? "This volume was not initilized. Do you want to do that now?" -- NO, don't! Sometimes the hard way is because of too fast mouse clicks. > but if the data is copied elsewhere . . . . then, nevermind ! Yeah, backups are always a good idea. That's why I love Time Machine. Great piece of work that Apple did here. They took an old idea (rsync, rsnapshot... if you've ever been in the Linux world) and made it better. The result is superb, awesome, astounding! @Wallace Adrian D'Alessio: please try NTFS-3G, and make your own experiences. @Nestamicky: use NTFS-3G for the moment, and if you're going to use the drive permanently in your Mac, convert it to HFS+ soon. This way you'll have the file system check & repair tools at hand if you should ever need them. Cheers, Andreas --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
