Making the switch...

acr4acr4
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
So sometime in the future I'm making the plunge to an Apple machine. I've been on Windows since 3.1 (and AmigaOS before that). I have an iPod and an external USB hard disk. Once I make the switch, understand my iPod will need to be reformatted. How does OS X handle NTFS partitions? I want to keep all my old data on the external hard disk, but from what I understand, I'll need to reformat to write to the disk. Is this correct? Will I have to transfer my data to the external drive, get an Apple, move everything over to the new computer, reformat, then bounce stuff back to the external drive?



Also, does Mac OS X come with some sort of backup utility, or are there commercial ones available? My external drive is only 160 GB, but I'd love to use it to make a backup of selective components (OS settings and music basically).



Lastly, can Apple hardware be used to dual-boot to Linux?



Thanks,

-acr4

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by acr4

    Also, does Mac OS X come with some sort of backup utility, or are there commercial ones available? My external drive is only 160 GB, but I'd love to use it to make a backup of selective components (OS settings and music basically).







    I'm weak on the PC file system stuff, so I'll let someone else tackle that. As far as the backup utility, there are cloners and there are true incremental backup systems. Cloners include SuperDuper for Tiger and Carbon Copy Cloner for Panther and below, unless they updated it recently for Tiger. For incremental "smart" backups, I recommend Apple's utility "Backup". The hooker is that you have to have a dot-Mac account to get it. BUt once you get it, it will do very smart backups to iDisk, iPod, and external drives, plus CD and DVD. Its best feature is that it knows about the Mac OS X directory structure and intelligently backs up what you need as far as data, documents, desktop, and preference settings, as well as either the music catalog or the music itself depending on whether the backup is to iDisk or a larger volume such as the iPod. There is also Retrospect, but I never did like that thing.

    Quote:



    Lastly, can Apple hardware be used to dual-boot to Linux?



    Thanks,

    -acr4



    Yup. No problem, just install Yellow Dog Linux, it's made for Mac. Make your partitions when you first start, as unlike a PC, it's not easy to repartition once you have data on there.
  • Reply 2 of 9
    mr. hmr. h Posts: 4,870member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by acr4

    I have an iPod and an external USB hard disk. Once I make the switch, understand my iPod will need to be reformatted.



    Not necessarily. Is the iPod FAT32 formatted? If so, you should be able to use it with OS X without re-formatting. The iPod will then be usable with both a Mac and a PC. If you don't need PC connectivity, I'd suggest re-formatting the iPod.



    Also, you should be aware that Apple does not provide a way of transferring music from iPod to computer. You'll need a 3rd party application to do that if you so desire, or just use your external HD to transfer PC music library to Mac music library.



    Quote:

    Originally posted by acr4

    How does OS X handle NTFS partitions? I want to keep all my old data on the external hard disk, but from what I understand, I'll need to reformat to write to the disk. Is this correct?



    Yes, OS X 10.3 and above can mount and read NTFS partitions, but not write to them.



    Quote:

    Originally posted by acr4

    Will I have to transfer my data to the external drive, get an Apple, move everything over to the new computer, reformat, then bounce stuff back to the external drive?



    Yup. Have fun.
  • Reply 3 of 9
    maccrazymaccrazy Posts: 2,658member
    To transfer music from an iPod to a Mac or PC you need to enable hidden folders on the iPod and copy the music folder (i forget what it's called it is filled with folder called F01, F02 etc. though) to your computer. From there it can be added to iTunes - if re-organising is turned on you can just delete the music folder you just copied and iTunes will have all the files organised properly. You will, however, lose all settings for play count etc. - you could try copying the iTunes library file which may be interchangeable between Macs and PCs and hold all that info.



    Incidentally Macs can read almost all PC format drives and no reformat is necessary. However, certain file characters cannot be put on PC formatted drives but can be put on Mac formatted drives - just a point to remember if you're copying files with critical names.
  • Reply 4 of 9
    kishankishan Posts: 732member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Mr. H

    Yes, OS X 10.3 and above can mount and read NTFS partitions, but not write to them.





    hmmmmm.... I find myself in the same position now. I just switched to a 14" iBook. I've had no problem with copying over my iTunes library and documents from the NTFS formated USB drive. Now that it has been done, I want to be able to write to the drive. The catch is that I still need the drive to be accesible from WinPC's.



    What is the solution here? I need to be able to read and write to the drive my my new Mac and my old PC.
  • Reply 5 of 9
    acr4acr4 Posts: 100member
    thanks everyone!
  • Reply 6 of 9
    mr. hmr. h Posts: 4,870member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kishan

    hmmmmm.... I find myself in the same position now. I just switched to a 14" iBook. I've had no problem with copying over my iTunes library and documents from the NTFS formated USB drive. Now that it has been done, I want to be able to write to the drive. The catch is that I still need the drive to be accesible from WinPC's.



    What is the solution here? I need to be able to read and write to the drive my my new Mac and my old PC.



    Either reformat the drive as FAT32 (which has a 4GB file limit, which may or may not be a problem for you) or HFS+ and buy MacDrive for your PC. I don't know about alternatives to MacDrive, all I can say is that it has worked very well for me.



    Also, I've never looked, but there may be third party solutions to allow OS X to write to NTFS drives?
  • Reply 7 of 9
    theapplegeniustheapplegenius Posts: 584member
    no, NTFS is very closed source, i think Linux people have been trying to get NTFS working for years now.
  • Reply 8 of 9
    chychchych Posts: 860member
    NTFS write support is very experimental and dangerous in linux. Microsoft can change the spec any time and things will break.



    FAT32 is really the most universal file system (and does NOT have a 4GB limit, rather a 2TB limit on its spec), however it is rather inefficient.



    There are ext2 drivers for both Mac and Windows, this could be an option.



    HFS+ is 'better' than ext2 and FAT32, with MacDrive, this could be the best (but not free) solution.
  • Reply 9 of 9
    kwsanderskwsanders Posts: 327member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by chych

    FAT32 is really the most universal file system (and does NOT have a 4GB limit, rather a 2TB limit on its spec), however it is rather inefficient.







    I believe what the original poster of the 4GB limit on FAT32 was referring to was the 4 GB file size limit on FAT32 which is very much has indeed. I had to move to NTFS when doing video editing because of that limit of FAT32.
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