Formatting a drive for both a G5 and intel compatability

[The Tasmanian]

Does anyone know of the correct formatting for a new hard drive for both a G5 and Intel compatibility?
I have some drives that when plugged in to my G5's - take hours to transfer -its a PITA
Any idea what format a new drive needs to be to work on both machines?

[Drumstruck]

Hi Chris,

What O/S would you be running on the Mac and the Intel boxes - format readability differs depending on version - I assume you mean the data drive and not the O/S too.

Generally Mac (and Unix / OS/2) will use HFS+ (High performance file system?) whereas Windows will use an NTFS format. FAT32 is readable by both but has limitations in file size and also suboptimal security.

http://osxdaily.com/2012/04/22/format-d ... ompatible/

[The Tasmanian]

G5 is 10.5.8
Intel is 10.6.8

Choices on my G5 for format are:
Mac OS extended (journaled)
Mac OS extended
Mac OS extended (case sensitive journaled)
Mac OS extended (case sensitive)
MS-Dos (FAT) > which is no point as I dont do PC's

[Alistair]

Hey Chris- check this out http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/formatting_hd_mac_stone.html

Particularly this paragraph- In the Erase tab window, the first thing that we need to set will be the new format. Clicking on the 'Volume Format' drop-down menu reveals several choices. It's the top two formats that we are interested in; Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and Mac OS Extended. The format that we chose, 'to Journal or not to Journal' depends on what the drive will be used for. If you are going to use the drive as a system or 'boot' drive, with the Mac OS on it, then you would want to select 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)'. If you will be using the drive as a media or 'scratch' drive, for video editing, then you would select Mac OS Extended, journaled not selected, as the journaling process slows down the write speed performance of the drive.

Journaling was developed primarily for Mac servers to protect the integrity of the disk Directories and file systems. Journaling is a process whereby the Mac OS keeps an eye on what you are doing while you work, it keeps a journal, keeping track of changes you have made to your files . If your Mac should go down, due to, for example, a power outage, when you restart your Mac, the Mac OS will check the journal and will perform a consistency check on the drive's directories and file structure. It will also attempt to restore any unsaved documents that you were working on at the time of the power failure. A very nice feature and it actually worked for me once when I lost power, an unsaved text document was recreated.

I never use case sensitive.

[The Tasmanian]

Thanks Alistair
Good info
But still not 100% sure which format is best for a G5 to use for a external drive - is mac OS extended best?
- the intel machine reads anything.

[Alistair]

It's been a few years since I had a G5, but pretty sure I was just using Extended non journaled for storage.

[The Tasmanian]

Thanks mate !

[psycho_monkey]

Bit late to the party, but it's also important to pay attention to the underlying partitioning (select the disk, not the partition - choose partition - options menu - you might need to choose "1 partition" instead of "Existing" to get to it.

GUID/Apple partition map both work fine for intel and PPC macs, but as the blurb says you need GUID to give you a bood disk for Intel, APM for PPC....make sure it's not on "master boot record" as most preformatted drives will be.

[Thirteen]

I don't think it matters much unless you want the drive to be a boot drive, then it does.

[psycho_monkey]

I don't think it matters much unless you want the drive to be a boot drive, then it does.

Possibly not...makes sense to set things up right from the start (or at least be aware of them) so you don't end up scratching your head further down the line!