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FAT 32?

Uaiomex

Member
I'm in the middle of migrating to Mac. I'm about to reformat my external storage, a WD MyBook 2 TB-Raid1. I was planning on reformatting to HFS+ but a friend told me he was told by a Mac vendor to format his external disc to Fat 32 in order to keep compatbility among operating systems like Mac and Windows.

Now, this sounds great, but I know FAT 32 has limitations of 4gb file size and 32gb volume size.

I would not be concerned about this limitations because my picture files are far from this limit. On volume size I don't know. What exactly is a "volume"?

Chances are, I'll start producing small videos for events now that the VSLR is a reality.

I will purchase a 5D2 whenever is available.
Also, I think I'll keep Windows under Bootcamp for those files coming from else like tiff and coreldraw (for instance).

Please comments, thoughts, warnings, anything . Thanks a lot.
Eduardo
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
First off, Mac HFS and PC NTFS drives are compatible across LAN, so you always have that option. HFS-journaled is a far superior Mac scheme as it allows for trouble-shooting and repairs...
 

Uaiomex

Member
Thanks a lot Jack:
Lan is good. But my main concern as I see it right now is tiff files formatted in my Mac to be handed to someone using Windows. My experience tells me that Mac can read files from a Windows machine but Windows, a lot of times can't open nor read a tiff file coming from a Mac.
How would I make certain to give people a tiff or jpg to be read by a PC?
What is the procedure in PS CS3?
Thanks again
Eduardo

First off, Mac HFS and PC NTFS drives are compatible across LAN, so you always have that option. HFS-journaled is a far superior Mac scheme as it allows for trouble-shooting and repairs...
 

Bob

Administrator
Staff member
In PS when you save a TIFF, you can select which byte order you prefer either PC or Mac.
I have a feeling that this is a throwback to PowerPC based Macs which were big-endian vs Intel chips which were little-endian. Today new PCs and Macs are made with Intel chips, so PC format is the one I chose for all purposes. BTW I havent found much of a difference on an Intel Mac with either setting.
Jpegs will work just fine PC or Mac just as they are.
-bob
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
But my main concern as I see it right now is tiff files formatted in my Mac to be handed to someone using Windows.
Nowadays, jpeg can be read by almost anything so no worries there. For the most part that applies to tiff as well with newer machines, but sometimes tiff compression routines and/or layers can have difficulties going cross platform to different OS's, even within Mac or PC. Since Mac reads them all, I save tiffs using the default standards for PC and no compression. (Edit: I got interrupted while responding and Bob was a few minutes faster responding, sorry for the dupe post ;) )

However, the above is a separate issue form how you format your drive. The *ONLY* advantage to FAT is that you can plug the drive into either computer directly and read the files. By contrast, a Mac won't read NTFS and a PC won't read HFS -- why I mentioned bridging over LAN since it solves that.

Cheers,
 

Uaiomex

Member
What I'm going to say even sound kind of weird to me:
After reading these kind replies, I'm inclined to reformat my external storage to HFS+. In order to secure compatibility between formats, I'll save my tiff files processed in my MBP as tiff for PC w/o compression of course.
Is it sound?
I had this issue the other day with a word file:
In a Mac I wrote an estimate in Word. I e-mailed my client the estimate as an attached Word file using Safari. He couldn't see the attachment. I had to email a copy/paste of the estimte right in the email. (no attachment) I have to say this has happenned to me just a few times and I don't have an idea was causes it. Something similar happenned to me sending a jpg inside a folder. I had to email it without the folder.
So, as you see, I have a lot of worries about this switch to Mac in a "Windowsworld"

Thanks again
Eduardo

Nowadays, jpeg can be read by almost anything so no worries there. For the most part that applies to tiff as well with newer machines, but sometimes tiff compression routines and/or layers can have difficulties going cross platform to different OS's, even within Mac or PC. Since Mac reads them all, I save tiffs using the default standards for PC and no compression. (Edit: I got interrupted while responding and Bob was a few minutes faster responding, sorry for the dupe post ;) )

However, the above is a separate issue form how you format your drive. The *ONLY* advantage to FAT is that you can plug the drive into either computer directly and read the files. By contrast, a Mac won't read NTFS and a PC won't read HFS -- why I mentioned bridging over LAN since it solves that.

Cheers,
 
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