NTFS to FAT32

FAT32 has a file size limit of 4GB. If you have large files, this could be a problem.

I prefer to format all my drives for the Mac.

I install MacDrive on my PC to allow the reading and writing to my Mac formatted drives.

http://www.mediafour.com/

NTFS is not Mac OS X writable without one of these third party software:

http://www.tuxera.com/products/tuxera-ntfs-for-mac/
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/hfs-windows/index.html
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/
http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/
HFS+ GUID partitioning is best if all you use are Intel Macs.
HFS+ Apple Partition Map is best if you use PowerPC Macs.
Except for Boot Camp, all virtualization engines offer their own sandboxed environments with their own formatting for working with other operating systems. Boot Camp offers its own partition. As samberl suggested Mediafour's software is often the best solution if you are going to connect a Mac hard drive to a PC and don't want to ruin its ability to boot Macs, or preserve Mac application and data file metadata info. Networking is probably the second best solution, as an FTP server can be setup on either system. Of course there is also SMB networking as well. Consider your environment first before doing any formatting, and please backup your data at least twice before doing any formatting or software install.

Use exFAT -

it is writable from mac and win without any additional tools and does not have FAT size limitations.

you can format partition into exFAT directly in disk utility

I've not seen that option in Disk Utility. When did it become available?

first seen it in 10.6.7. Don't know when it appears - for sure in some 10.6.x

to file, folders are not limited. About drive size - it is BIG, can't recall exactly, but big, like terabytes. Only side effect - big claster size on big partitions - that mean say 500 byte-sized txt file will occupy like 32 kb on drive cos 32 kb is smallest possible allocation size. (32 kb - for example)

IMHO formatting a single disk for both platforms is a false economy with disks being so cheap.

I suggest getting a disk for each platform and formatting it appropriately for each platform.

If data needs to be moved between the platform use the network.

Allan

I think he's talking about sharing same HD space between MAC OS and WIN on single computer

OK, 10.6.5 and later:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT

So in other words PowerPC Macs can't use it. But at least all Intel Macs with Snow Leopard can, and XP SP 2 can use it.

As far as I know... FAT32 can't be larger than 32GB if you are planning to use it with Windows XP. An though with other OSs it can, it is usually not recomended because FAT32 is really old, and not meant for "modern" use (It cant handle files larger than 4GB, its way slower, it gets corrupted reall easy...)

My recomendation... If your not gonna rely on FAT32 for some heavy filelifting than yeah, go FAT32 and NFTS... and install the free version of NFTS 3G or something.

On networking:

When you connect your drive it will show both partitions as if they were independent drives... you will have two volumes mounted. This also applies to your local network: if you connect from another mac it will be as if 2 hdds were connected.

Upon ejecting any it will ask you if you want to eject the other, you can opt to or not (but of course, you can't safeley unplug the drive unless both are ejected).

That of course, if OSX has NFTS drivers installed. If not im pretty sure it will just detect one.

>what is the simplest way

exFAT

but as a brody showed it will not be readable on systems earlier than 10.6.5