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Mac laptops forum: Back up for mac and pc on external HD

by: docsterx51 January 9, 2013 11:38 AM PST

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Back up for mac and pc on external HD

by docsterx51 - 1/9/13 11:38 AM

I want to use an external hard drive to back up my macs and a PC. I called Toshiba customer service. I wanted a 1 TD external desktop HD. I asked the CS agent if the model I selected was formatted for mac and pc. He said yes. I had it shipped and when I got it, it's formatted for Windows. Called Toshiba cs and they are pretty useless. The site itself is also pretty bad.

I know that I can format to FAT but that causes storage space limitations. I've heard that both pc and mac can use exFAT but that some older versions of the pc and mac OSs may not be supported.

What's the best thing to do in this situation? Use FAT? exFAT? Other? And how do I do it and partition the drive so that it can store info from both OSs? And any other suggestions? Thanks.


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Windows 7 doesn't support exFAT

by wpgwpg - 1/9/13 11:42 AM

In Reply to: Back up for mac and pc on external HD by docsterx51

I know Windows 7 doesn't support exFAT, and I doubt that Windows 8 does either. I'm pretty ignorant about Macs (other than the kind you eat laugh ), but don't they support NTFS?


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Try this,

by mrmacfixit Moderator - 1/9/13 4:09 PM

In Reply to: Back up for mac and pc on external HD by docsterx51

even though 1TB is a little small for backing up both devices.

Partition the 1 TB hard drive into two (2) equal parts.

Format one part as Mac OS X Extended (journaled). Do that on a Mac.
Format the other part as NTFS. Do that on the PC.

Now you have a drive that will work with Time Machine for your Mac backups, when connected to the Mac and will work with your Windows backup software when connected to the PC

P


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