NTFS to FAT32 or using external Drive on PC and a MAC

[dovermire]

I an not a techie re PC's but can find my way about on most things, using a MAC is still alien to me so if someone can come up with a no cost alternative or better I think this will probably suffice.

Being a user of Lightroom on a PC I keep my images and Lightroom catalogue etc. on an external 2TB 3.5" SATA HD, this is located in a caddy and a backup of this is also kept on a 1.5TB 2.5" HD which is attached via a SATA to USB dongle when required both have (had) NTFS file system, I also have a MAC laptop that I couldn't resist buying from a friend of mine around two years ago, rarley used but I did put Windows 10 on it so it's dual system so to speak, Lightroom is on the MAC side and yes before anybody adds to this I could put Lightroom on the PC instead if I had the room on the HD.

Anyway, this came about because I thought about using the 2.5" HD backup on the MAC version of Lightroom, to cut it short, the MAC agreed their was a HD attached but Lightroom would not read or write to it, main reason being, without using third party drivers for the MAC, MAC and NTFS appear to be incompatible.

Watched various Youtube videos about using an external drive on two computers but non mentioned PC/MAC compatibility. So, did a google search and came across this link in a thread on a Lightroom forum www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?guiformat.htm for a very small file that will allow you to format a drive larger than 32GB (which I believe is the maximum size for FAT32) the downsize being a max single file size of 4GB, at the moment this is not an issue as the largest file I have is the Ircat catalogue for Lightroom of 3.2GB, yes almost getting on to maximum size.

Downloaded the file from the link above, formatted the 2.5" SATA (took seconds) and copied my Images and Lightroom files from my main 3.5" SATA to the formatted FAT32 one, fired up the MAC, attached 2.5" FAT32 HD and was able to read and write to this HD from Lightroom, so this appears to have done the trick re using this drive and yes I do appreciate the awkwardness of keeping both drives up to date doing it this way.

I could have probably gone about this another way, ie use the MAC version when away roaming, edit etc and copy whatever from MAC/Lightroom version to somehow add the the main PC version or sync everything via the cloud, I'm still not a user of cloud technology, if anyone can point to me some info on how to do this I'll look into it, anyway, gave me something to do yesterday, if anybody else goes down this path it takes a long time to copy from SATA to FAT32, could be cluster size or fairly slow PC and various bottlenecks.

Killed a bit of time doing this article.

[radiostationx]

Hi Dave
Could you create a fat 32 partition on your PC and map the drive so you can share it over your home network from any machine Mac or win. ?

[dovermire]

Mar 5, 2018 18:15:44 GMT 1 radiostationx said:

Hi Dave
Could you create a fat 32 partition on your PC and map the drive so you can share it over your home network from any machine Mac or win. ?

Morning Mike, thought you may come in on this thread.

Haven't had the need to network, so never really looked in to it, occasionally used Teamviewer for file swapping between the odd PC but never expanded my horizons.

Had another look at my MAC re Lightroom, could deactivate and uninstall Adobe products on the MAC side and have checked my Win 10 size which actually would accommodate the installation of the Adobe products so NTFS could be used from a portable drive, still want to stay clear of cloud storage at the mo as my upload speeds are kb's not mb's although I can watch streaming movies on the download side.

If anything, it's been a bit of a learning curve, my Win 10 PC is a Dell Venue 7130 Tablet with a 120gb SSD used on a docking station, DVI output extra USB ports etc and external HD caddy which is plug and play/swappable and works very well, connected to a 40" TV via HDMI and TV colour corrected as far as possible for Lightroom (can't use a 'Spyder' type device on this), with the MAC connected not impressed at all, using the MAC occasionally screen positioning is important for Lightroom development as viewing angle is important, anyway I digress.

So, after further looking in to it will probably stick with Win 10 on the MAC, this is rarely used - not as a day machine like the Dell, which I have really been impressed with as its still going after three years and updates still there from the manufacturer.

Thanks for the input.

[radiostationx]

Hi Dave, like most photographers, a complex set up for home use but good quality components. Dell stuff is very good and the business products are supported for years on end it seems ,just like HP.
I can't say I'm a fan of apple products except for their retina displays which are up there in a stratosphere all of their own, there is no better for photography,graphics or animation applications imho. Trouble is most users have nothing approaching the resolution of a retina screen and this creates issues when connecting remotely to a Mac via TeamViewer or suchlike.
Perhaps a cheap solution could be to obtain a router with a usb3 connection and small ssd. You can partition a usb3 plug in ssd then attach it to router usb3 socket and map the partitions for sharing across the 2 platforms you have.
Speed would not be an issue as usb3 is lightning fast and the access read/write to the ssd would be done across your home network at 802.11 AC wireless speeds.
Also you could set up remote access to the ssd partitions through the router firewall so that they could be reached when away from home from any device.
Going "further down the path" you could set a script for copying/cloning each partition
on the ssd unattended automatically /periodically do you would never lose data.