Mac question from a non-Mac User

Hi Guys

This might be really dumb question

I currently have a Windows 7 machine with a couple of external hard drives and a media hub.

If I were to change to a Mac, would my external drives and media hub work as they are or would they need formatting in some way so the Mac would read them?

Sorry if its a stupid question

Cheers

Depends on the format of the drives. Fat 32 will work as is. NTFS will need a plugin to write to, but can read. Not sure about the media hub.

Here you go. NTFS-3G will allow you to write to the drives as well as read.

JuSlaughter wrote in post #10665312
Hi Guys

This might be really dumb question

I currently have a Windows 7 machine with a couple of external hard drives and a media hub.

If I were to change to a Mac, would my external drives and media hub work as they are or would they need formatting in some way so the Mac would read them?

Sorry if its a stupid question

Cheers

If you were to change over, the likely answer is the drives would be read only, third party NTFS drivers for OSX don't like a lot of features of NTFS, and may break the file system (i've heard it happen once, so not very common, but can happen). But since most drives now come NTFS formatted, unless they are "for Mac" drives, you are likely running NTFS.

If you already have W7 though, why bother with OSX? Unless you NEED to use Final Cut, there's no reason to switch OSes (other than personal preference, but if you don't already have a OSX, being "cool" is the closest thing to preference you can have for it), and plenty of reasons NOT to switch. Lack of eSATA on hardware (if you have eSATA drives, you will need to revert to slow USB or slightly faster but slower than eSATA FB800), most programs will need to be repurchased or formally transferred (usually a fee associated, and only valid on the newest version), will need minor changes to your network if you are using W7 homegroups or DLNA, etc.


EDIT: In case people forgot, OP included "media hub". This generally means a networked drive, sharegroup, or home server, not all of which work properly on OSX without changing some settings (though most networked drives should work just fine). My comments are much more relevant than mindless personal attacks.

6 months from reading mac posts in here due to a certain indavidual, and low and behold barsoil jumping into questions on which he is totally biased, the OP asked advice on drive connection not your preaching. Gonna find somewhere else to preach as for me you ruin this forum....

interlock wrote in post #10668742
6 months from reading mac posts in here due to a certain indavidual, and low and behold barsoil jumping into questions on which he is totally biased, the OP asked advice on drive connection not your preaching. Gonna find somewhere else to preach as for me you ruin this forum....

It IS oh so predictable, isn't it?

JuSlaughter - as rklepper said, FAT32 drives will read/write fine. NTFS will be read-only, or will require additional software.

basroil wrote in post #10668309
If you were to change over, the likely answer is the drives would be read only, third party NTFS drivers for OSX don't like a lot of features of NTFS, and may break the file system (i've heard it happen once, so not very common, but can happen). But since most drives now come NTFS formatted, unless they are "for Mac" drives, you are likely running NTFS.

If you already have W7 though, why bother with OSX? Unless you NEED to use Final Cut, there's no reason to switch OSes (other than personal preference, but if you don't already have a OSX, being "cool" is the closest thing to preference you can have for it), and plenty of reasons NOT to switch. Lack of eSATA on hardware (if you have eSATA drives, you will need to revert to slow USB or slightly faster but slower than eSATA FB800), most programs will need to be repurchased or formally transferred (usually a fee associated, and only valid on the newest version), will need minor changes to your network if you are using W7 homegroups or DLNA, etc.


EDIT: In case people forgot, OP included "media hub". This generally means a networked drive, sharegroup, or home server, not all of which work properly on OSX without changing some settings (though most networked drives should work just fine). My comments are much more relevant than mindless personal attacks.

Seriously?

JuSlaughter wrote in post #10665312
Hi Guys

This might be really dumb question

I currently have a Windows 7 machine with a couple of external hard drives and a media hub.

If I were to change to a Mac, would my external drives and media hub work as they are or would they need formatting in some way so the Mac would read them?

Sorry if its a stupid question

Cheers

Like Doc said, you can install a driver that allows OS X to write to NTFS hard drives. Alternatively, you can format them with FAT32 which OS X can read and write to naively. That's what I do with my removable drives that I move from PC to Mac.

Which Media Hub are you using? It's kinda generic, but most often Media Hub's use standard networking protocols which means they would work with PC's, Mac's and even Linux machines. Some hubs can also work, but with a slightly less array of features such as the AppleTV which gains the ability to remote with iTunes (which is PC & Mac).

basroil wrote in post #10668309
If you already have W7 though, why bother with OSX? Unless you NEED to use Final Cut, there's no reason to switch OSes (other than personal preference, but if you don't already have a OSX, being "cool" is the closest thing to preference you can have for it), and plenty of reasons NOT to switch.

And then you wonder why people say you hate Apple...

rklepper wrote in post #10666582
Here you go. NTFS-3G will allow you to write to the drives as well as read.

You also have to install MacFUSE to get write abilities. Both are free and easy to install.

interlock wrote in post #10668742
6 months from reading mac posts in here due to a certain indavidual, and low and behold barsoil jumping into questions on which he is totally biased, the OP asked advice on drive connection not your preaching. Gonna find somewhere else to preach as for me you ruin this forum....

Opinions are by their very nature biased.
There is however no need to pay any attention to those you disagree with, often the best thing to do is simply ignore them.

Seems I've started something here, very sorry.

The media hub is a Linksys Media Hub NMH405

Thanks for the replies

JuSlaughter wrote in post #10671942
S
The media hub is a Linksys Media Hub NMH405

Thanks for the replies

Looks like it works with a Mac: http://www.linksysbyci​sco.com/APAC/en/produc​ts/NMH405

JuSlaughter,

I use a Mac at home and Windows and Linux at work. All the systems can read/write to FAT32 formatted drives. FAT32 is pretty dated and very inefficient for larger drives. As noted above their are software solutions available that allow non-windows machines to access (read/write) NTFS. These solutions work pretty well in my experience but for dedicated use with my Mac I reformat drives to Apples file system so I can fully use the capabilities of OS X.

The media hub looks like networked attached storage and they offer OS X setup SW for it. Most Network storage systems rely on a SW/Network interface setup to your PC (Windows, Linux, or OS X) so your computer won't actually know how the media is formatted.

As for starting something - don't worry about it. The crowd around here is a pretty good group, just very enthusiastic on some topics. They are all trying to help and as Moppie said earlier, all opinions are biased.

- Eric