which FS to use for shared drive OS9/OSX/XP/VISTA?

~ufo~~ufo~
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Hi,



I just bought a SATA to FW400/FW800/USB2 case and a 500GB/16MB SATA drive to sit in it.



I would like to use the drive between several machines running OS9, OSX and sometimes windows (clients bring windows machines with them.)



what filesystem would work on all these systems? FAT32 perhaps? but isn't that limited to Jolliet names? that is a max of 8 characters before the extension and all in CAPS???



that would drive me nuts, surely.



any tips?



I could try and partiton the drive and format them differently but then the interchanging of files would be impaired, to say the least.



Yvo

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,340moderator
    If you format the drive as HFS+, you can access it from Windows using Macdrive:



    http://www.mediafour.com/products/ma...6/bootcamp.asp



    but that costs $50.



    If you format as NTFS, you can read/write the drive in parallels but then you have to launch Parallels for copying and this won't work in OS 9. Plus you'd have to get Parallels etc.



    I'd say macdrive was the best solution. Ideally, you should have gone for a network drive in a shared environment:



    http://www.dealtime.co.uk/xPF-Freeco...Capacity-24358

    http://www.amazon.com/Iomega-160GB-E.../dp/B0002AAR9M

    http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10594
  • Reply 2 of 6
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    I think FAT32 can do longer file names. However, it's still crap.



    Extending functionality in windows tends to cost money no matter what you're trying to do. Not only does Windows have scant support for useful utilities that macs and most desktop distributions of linux seem to include, but there freeware scene for Windows is really crappy as well. MacDrive is probably the best solution, and at $50 it's a cheaper backup solution than Norton Ghost, which is currently pretty much the only good way to make disk images in Windows.
  • Reply 3 of 6
    ~ufo~~ufo~ Posts: 245member
    thanks guys,



    I'll give the macdrive option a try.



    care to elaborate why fat32 is crap though?

    i remember something about being limited in howmany GB it can maximally see on a drive, I may be confused though...
  • Reply 4 of 6
    mr. hmr. h Posts: 4,870member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ~ufo~


    thanks guys,



    I'll give the macdrive option a try.



    If you go with MacDrive though, you'll have to install MacDrive onto clients' PCs, perform the copying, and then delete the software when you're done. Seems like a lot of hassle to me. How about using HFS+ and sharing the drive over SAMBA or FTP to client PCs.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ~ufo~


    care to elaborate why fat32 is crap though?



    FAT32 isn't limited to Joliet names (thank god!), the main limitation is that individual files are limited to a max. size of 4 GB. It also seems to get quite easily fragmented, but I'm not sure if that's inherent in the design of FAT32 or just due to the implementations.



    If you care enough, Wikipedia is, as usual, your friend, with articles on HFS+, FAT, and a comparison of filesystems page.
  • Reply 5 of 6
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ~ufo~


    thanks guys,



    I'll give the macdrive option a try.



    care to elaborate why fat32 is crap though?

    i remember something about being limited in howmany GB it can maximally see on a drive, I may be confused though...



    If I remember correctly, it's not even contained in an efficient B-Tree hierarchy, the way most modern filesystems are. It doesn't contain much in the way of error protection or any of the tricks that make a filesystem suitable for use as a boot drive in systems with virtual memory.



    If you're just going to use it as a file dump, FAT32 is OK, but if you plan on actually using the drive, you'll want a faster, more modern FS. Personally, if I had just dropped bank for a SATA to FW400/FW800/USB2 case and a 500GB/16MB SATA drive, I'd just as well plunk down the $50 so that I can run HFS++.



    For the record, I'm still waiting for the day when I can run Reiser on my mac.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    ~ufo~~ufo~ Posts: 245member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr. H


    If you go with MacDrive though, you'll have to install MacDrive onto clients' PCs, perform the copying, and then delete the software when you're done. Seems like a lot of hassle to me. How about using HFS+ and sharing the drive over SAMBA or FTP to client PCs.



    That's a pretty good idea, if ethernet weren't so slow.

    I run a recording studio, after a session, what needs to be transferred to client's machines ranges between 4GB and 100GB, usually closer to the latter.

    I have two Quicksilver G4s in the recording studios and a 24" iMac for basic video and post stuff.

    The G4s will at least take hours and hours to copy something of that size to a windows machine via ethernet.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr. H


    FAT32 isn't limited to Joliet names (thank god!), the main limitation is that individual files are limited to a max. size of 4 GB. It also seems to get quite easily fragmented, but I'm not sure if that's inherent in the design of FAT32 or just due to the implementations.



    Thanks, individual files limited to 4GB is reason enough for me to not look into it any further.



    I think HFS+ and macdrive and/or ftp client it will be.
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