timsalive

Q: share external hard drive with windows

I have 2 pc's and a minimac.  I want to share them on my home network.  I have a new 3TB external hard drive that I want to store everything on.  I want to write to it from all computers.  I want some files to be shared such as photoshop illustrator and premeire pro from both pc's and mac.  Lastly I want to use time machine.  Am I asking too much?  The wife refuses to learn mac at this time.  Maybe in the future then I can turn the pc's into a boat anchor.

Posted on Jun 13, 2012 7:35 PM

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Q: share external hard drive with windows

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  • by SWO2Cryppie,Helpful

    SWO2Cryppie SWO2Cryppie Jun 13, 2012 8:31 PM in response to timsalive
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jun 13, 2012 8:31 PM in response to timsalive

    While it is possible to do all of these things on your external hard drive after going through a few steps, you will find that after some time - Time Machine will consume all of the free space on that hard drive.

     

    My recommendation is that you use a seperate hard drive for Time Machine - and don't do anything else with that hard drive.

     

    In the meantime, you could use the equipment you have available and establish a folder on your Mac Mini that will allow you to do all of the sharing that you need.  Everything will then be archived on the external hard drive using Time Machine.

     

    The following Mac 101 article will get you up and running in the file sharing arena:

     

    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1549?viewlocale=en_US

     

    Enjoy!

  • by timsalive,

    timsalive timsalive Jun 13, 2012 8:39 PM in response to SWO2Cryppie
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 13, 2012 8:39 PM in response to SWO2Cryppie

    So do I set the new external up to fat 32 and then use an older 320 gb hard drive for time machine?  It is an older acomdata firewire hard drive.  So then which hard drive gets setup as fat 32 and ntsb

  • by SWO2Cryppie,

    SWO2Cryppie SWO2Cryppie Jun 13, 2012 8:49 PM in response to timsalive
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jun 13, 2012 8:49 PM in response to timsalive

    Time Machine requires an HFS+ formatted volume, and it should be larger than the hard drives you're archiving.

     

    There's several ways to skin this cat.  If I were you, I'd use the 320GB hard drive for your file sharing.  If you're making anything larger than 4GB, it has to be formatted HFS+ if it's attached to your Mac (maximum file size, hard limit in FAT32).  Your Windows PCs will just see it as a Network Volume.

     

    The 3TB hard drive would be best used as your Time Machine so that you'll have good archive with plenty of room as you expand your system.  Also, if your Mac Mini is running Lion Server - any future Macs you get can use that as their Time Machine as well.

     

    It's very easy to copy that 320GB hard drive to a larger volume using Disk Utility, and you can setup Time Machine to backup both your Mac Mini and the 320GB external hard drive.

  • by timsalive,

    timsalive timsalive Jun 13, 2012 8:59 PM in response to SWO2Cryppie
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 13, 2012 8:59 PM in response to SWO2Cryppie

    My main puirpose for the 3 tb hard drive was to store all my itunes and movies plus the camcorder videos and pictures of which I have 10,000 plus and the movies will come close to 150 once I put them all onto the hd.  Music wise I have around 8000 songs.  I will eventually use the Apple tv to interface with the new tv and want it seemless or as seemless as can be.  I eventually can get another 3 tb external for time machine if needed since it was only 139.00 at costco. 

  • by SWO2Cryppie,

    SWO2Cryppie SWO2Cryppie Jun 13, 2012 9:25 PM in response to timsalive
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jun 13, 2012 9:25 PM in response to timsalive

    It may be best if you hold off on using Time Machine until you have a hard drive that can fit your Mac Mini and Media Library with plenty of room to spare.  The whole point of Time Machine is to be an electronic Safe Deposit Box.  It can't do that if it's on the same hard drive as your Media Library.

     

    You'll still be able to do everything else you want to do.

  • by jayjay8382,

    jayjay8382 jayjay8382 Aug 22, 2012 3:54 PM in response to timsalive
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 22, 2012 3:54 PM in response to timsalive

    This might help somewhat: format your new hard drive into 2 partitions.  One HFS+ and one exFAT.  Point the time machine to the HFS+ with a 1tb partition.  Use the remaining 2tb for the PC backups.   You could also use a seperate Mac backup program to save particular folders to the exFAT since Macs are now able to read and write to exFAT.