External HD cross platform solution

[Machinesworking]

What are people using for cross platform solutions these days? Is it still necessary to format drives to Fat 32 for cross platform access?
Are there any free or cheap solutions to using the standard Windows or Mac formats cross platform? A friend asked me about what to use, and as far as I know it's still necessary to use fat 32 so both platforms can read and write, but I'm not familiar with Windows 7, and possible solutions?

What he wants to do is use an external HD to transfer projects between platforms, and hopefully use something besides fat 32 which would limit size to 4GB etc.

[c5_convertible]

I use MacDrive 8. That runs on Windows, and is able to read OS X formatted disks. It works quite well. I have tried solutions on the mac that allow you to read/write NTFS partitions, but each one of them didn't really work well (actually, not to my liking - might be different )
MacDrive is not a free app though. It's not expensive either. You can find it here : http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/
The only problem is that you only get a one machine license....

K.

[Machinesworking]

That's the one. Thanks!

[drumrak]

you can format that drive so that the pc uses one side and mac uses the other or something. just tell the drive formatter thing on mac(disk utility) that you want to use both pc and mac and it works fine.

[Machinesworking]

you can format that drive so that the pc uses one side and mac uses the other or something. just tell the drive formatter thing on mac(disk utility) that you want to use both pc and mac and it works fine.

The idea is to transfer files to the PC from the Mac, in one environment, hopefully with no 4GB limit that Fat 32 forces.
The best solution seems to be to get Macdrive 8, since the Mac user is the one with the Live songs, the PC user is new to Live etc.

[twisted-space]

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?s ... 3140023382

[fishmonkey]

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?s ... 3140023382

as far as i know the (normally inactive) native NTFS support in Snow Leopard is buggy.

Paragon or Tuxera NTFS (both not free) are the things to use if you want to read/write NTFS on a Mac.

[steko]

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jsp ... 3&tstart=0

[rikhyray]

I have the 3G on Mac and that macdrive on pc, use both everyday, moving data via LAN or ext drives, since June never had any issue. My external drives are still all NTFS but MBP never had any problems reading and after installing 3G writing either.

[fishmonkey]

btw, the performance of the Tuxera and Paragon NTFS drivers is much better than the free NTFS drivers (surprise, surprise).