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User profile for user: EirualMac
EirualMac Author
User level: Level 1
10 points

home network backup/Seagate Paragon Driver

Sorry for the "LONG" post....Has ANYONE had experience with this:


Am trying to setup a new 8 gb Seagate Expansion desktop drive as a backup device for both my windows 10 pc and my Mac mini (2018 - BigSur v11.4). The types of files I am wanting to back up are fairly From Mac: Microsoft word, excel, PDF, pictures, videos (from iPhone).

From PC: Microsoft word, excel, pictures (jpeg, tiff, etc., ) pdfs.


Ultimately, I'd like the ability to open/read/access the files from this external drive on both/either my Mac mini OR Win10 pc.


I seem to have 3 options (per Seagate):

  1. Seagate Paragon Driver
  2. Reformat external drive to exFAT
  3. Re-Partition the external drive (one for MAC, one for Win10)


Option 1: Seagate Paragon Driver: My understanding is I have to download a Seagate Paragon driver to my Mac mini, that will allow the Mac mini to save files to this already formatted NTFS external drive. This paragon driver will convert/translate the Mac files into NTFS format that will intern be able to be opened/accessed by the windows pc. In the reverse, the paragon driver will 'convert/translate" windows pc saved files to be opened/read by the Mac mini. CON: recommended to "COPY/PASTE" files to/from the external drive, as the "time machine" (windows) cannot save files that Mac will be able to open/access, and MAC won't be able to "save" a backup image to the NTFS drive.


Option 2: Reformat seagate external drive: exFAT is accessible by both Win & MAC. Will need to reformat the already, out-of-the-box NTFS formatted external drive. I'm Looking for anyone who's done that already - who maybe knows of a glitch of reformatting an 8 TB hard drive, before I mess this up......


Option 3: Partition the external drives: one for Mac, one for win. It's my understanding the backed-up files will be inaccessible by opposite OS.


ALSO: I remember vaguely an issue I always ran into with backing up files in windows where the file owner was only granted access to open the file, How do I save files to /from the win10 pc & Mac mini so they can be opened by whomever has access to the drive? I'd prefer to set some security on the drive where the "DRIVE" can only be opened with password. Since the drive isn't WIFI or has NIC, it will have to be connected by USB to either PC or Mac (plan on keeping it plugged in all the time, & scripting a job to copy files to it at night.


Insight, experiences, suggestions are GREATLY appreciated!!!



Mac mini, macOS 11.4

Posted on Aug 3, 2021 9:46 AM

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User profile for user: Tesserax
Tesserax
User level: Level 10
148,805 points

Posted on Aug 3, 2021 3:11 PM

Yes, that is correct, Time Machine backups are meant primary to be accessed from the Time Machine app, which of course, does not run on an Windows PC. In turn, most Windows backup apps are not accessible from the Macs.


FWIW, In my case, where I have both Windows and Mac clients. I use a Synology NAS for backups from any of them. Synology, and a few others, provide backup solutions that are not operating system dependent. It may be worth considering in your case as well.


Going back to what you provided in your original post, you were asking what would be the better choice amongst the three presented, and to best answer that, I needed to know if you were dependent on using Time Machine ... and, if so, the third option you presented, would be my recommendation. Again, that's because TM backups are not a collection of files, but a special compressed file set that was not meant to be accessed either from a Mac (outside of the TM app) or non-Macs.


It appears that you have a requirement for both a backup solution for either operating system, but also for a file server solution for both as well. This is where a NAS would fit in perfectly.

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User profile for user: Tesserax
Tesserax
User level: Level 10
148,805 points

Aug 3, 2021 3:11 PM in response to EirualMac

Yes, that is correct, Time Machine backups are meant primary to be accessed from the Time Machine app, which of course, does not run on an Windows PC. In turn, most Windows backup apps are not accessible from the Macs.


FWIW, In my case, where I have both Windows and Mac clients. I use a Synology NAS for backups from any of them. Synology, and a few others, provide backup solutions that are not operating system dependent. It may be worth considering in your case as well.


Going back to what you provided in your original post, you were asking what would be the better choice amongst the three presented, and to best answer that, I needed to know if you were dependent on using Time Machine ... and, if so, the third option you presented, would be my recommendation. Again, that's because TM backups are not a collection of files, but a special compressed file set that was not meant to be accessed either from a Mac (outside of the TM app) or non-Macs.


It appears that you have a requirement for both a backup solution for either operating system, but also for a file server solution for both as well. This is where a NAS would fit in perfectly.

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home network backup/Seagate Paragon Driver

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