What are the difference in these two formats? Anyone know? I have a 1TB hard drive I bought and I don't know which one to select. I know I will be saving files over 4gb and will be using both Mac & PC platforms.
MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8)
Case sensitive allows files of the same name but some difference in letter case to be in the same directory ("folder"). The standard format from Apple is not case sensitive.
For example, in the standard format, "Mac OS Extended (journaled)", a file named "filename.txt" would be identified exactly the same as "fileName.txt" so the two must be in different directories. With the "case sensitive" format, they are seen as different files. Some third-party applications are not designed for the case sensitive format so they may not always perform correctly. Unless you have a pressing need to save or locate files based on letter case, stick with the non-case sensitive option.
You can verify which format has been used with your drive volume (that means a drive or a partition of a drive), by selecting it in a Finder window and apply the "Get Info" command, such as command + I or File > Get Info. The format type is listed in that Info window under "General".
Hope this answers your question.
I guess my real question is the difference between all four of the following options: Mac OS Extended, Mac OS Extended (Journaled), Mac OS (Case-sensitive), and Mac OS (Case-sensitive, Journaled) when reformatting an external hard drive?
I know that Mac OS (FAT) is compatible with both PC and Mac platforms, however, there's a limit to trasnferring files to 4GB.
I just would like to know if there are other alternatives. I came to learn that Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and Mac OS Extended. The format that we chose, 'to Journal or not to Journal' depends on what the drive will be used for. If you are going to use the drive as a system or 'boot' drive, with the Mac OS on it, then you would want to select 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)'. If you will be using the drive as a media or 'scratch' drive, for video editing, then you would select Mac OS Extended, journaled not selected, as the journaling process slows down the write speed performance of the drive.
Journaling was developed primarily for Mac servers to protect the integrity of the disk Directories and file systems. Journaling is a process whereby the Mac OS keeps an eye on what you are doing while you work, it keeps a journal, keeping track of changes you have made to your files . If your Mac should go down, due to, for example, a power outage, when you restart your Mac, the Mac OS will check the journal and will perform a consistency check on the drive's directories and file structure. It will also attempt to restore any unsaved documents that you were working on at the time of the power failure.
Now that leaves me to Mac OS (Case-sensitive) vs. Mac OS (Case-sensitive, Journaled)? Any advice?
The upshot, as previously mentioned, is that none of the Mac OS Extended verisons, whether journaled, case-sensitive, encrypted or not, will work on a Windows machine without additional software. Windows just doesn't natively read Mac OS Extended volumes.
I know that Mac OS (FAT) is compatible with both PC and Mac platforms, however, there's a limit to trasnferring files to 4GB.
Right, but no one, at least not I, suggested using FAT. FAT has little place in modern disks, it's mostly used for legacy reasons, and for small volumes (such as flash drives). I recommended using ExFAT, which is an option in Mountain Lion.
This is an extended version of FAT that is cross-platform compatible and avoids many of the limitations of FAT - at least as far as file sizes and disk sizes are concerned.
If you plan to use it for both Mac and PC then you don't want either.
MS-DOS can be written to by both OS X and Windows.
The two format you are talking about require MacDrive on the Windows PC to be able to write to the disk.
I concur with hpr3 that you don't want case sensitive especially if Windows will be involved.
Allan
The direct answer to your question is that one is encrypted and the other is not.
As others have mentioned, though, neither is ideal for working in a cross-platform environment since Windows systems can't read Mac OS Extended volumes without third-party software. If you want to get that software then go ahead, otherwise you'll need to dumb down your options and stick with ExFAT, which is the better cross-platform format.
Nor the Adobe suites. They will even tell you when you start installing the software that the drive you're putting the software on is case sensitive and must be changed before you can install and use Adobe's software.
I am having exactly that problem with rebuilding iPhoto libraries that aren't functioning properly. I was advised to change my external drive's format from Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) to Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and check the button for "Ignore ownership on this volume."
My external drive already has on it my Time Machine backups and my iPhoto library backups (which I need to keep till I get my issues with that application resolved).
Looking at Disk Utility, it seems that changing the format of the drive would erase my data. Is that so? The iPhoto files are too big for my hard drive, so this would mean I would have to purchase another external drive to save my data.
Yes, reformatting the drive will erase the data.
I strongly recommend the Case-Sensitive not be used.
I strongly recommend that Time Machine and your data not be stored on the same drive.
I strongly recommend a disk for Time Machine and another for your photos.
You really should start your own thread rather then tagging on to a thread that has been dead now since last year. Probably the only reason I even saw this was because I posted it on prior so it popped up for me to view.
Allan
AFromVT wrote:
. . .
My external drive already has on it my Time Machine backups
That's the single exception. If you let Time Machine format a backup drive, it will use case-sensitive, just as it will make a case-sensitive sparse bundle disk image for a network backup.
The apparent reason is, if the backups are case-ignorant, and at a later date you decide to add a case-sensitive drive to your system and want Time Machine to back it up, too . . . it can't. But if the backups are case-sensitive, it can.
99.9% of the time, there's no problem with that. See #E7 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting for the exception.
Bottom line -- if you ever have to get a new drive and start over, use case-ignorant. But you won't be able to copy the case-sensitive backup set to a new TM drive and continue backing-up to it. You can, however, still access the old backups via the Browse Other Backup Disks option, per #E2 in the above link.
Since I always format the disks before use and never let the formating be done by an application, I was not aware of this exception of Time Machine formating to Case-Sensitive. Thanks. I learned something today.
Allan
Mac OS Extended Journaled is a format used in mac for example using the drive or disk for time machine backup, where is encrypted version means is password protected and this key will be needed for decrypting hence your data will be safe. By the way none of these versions can be used on a windows, and why would you need case sensitive journaled ?
Hope it helps 🙂
This one solved my issue...i formatted my TOSHIBA Ex HDD in MAC OS (journaled) then was gonna transfer files from my windows laptop to my Mac but couldnt find it in My Computer tab..only in the list of devices..i reformatted to EXFAT and made a partition..all on EXFAT..voila! i can now use it on both Windows and Mac OS..thank u so much
No one dug it up, a search for an answer did. What is someone supposed to do if a 2015 search yields no answer after pouring through endless previous years dialog (from people who quickly tire of discussing what they forget quickly becomes dated information), only posts dropping off in 2013? Is someone actually at fault for not having their question at the time of your discussion? The very same people criticize those who get frustrated by this and begin it as a new topic for not researching(the too-old-to-discuss topic). Just to set everyone straight, what exactly is the statute of limitations on old forum topic revival?
H20pulse wrote:
No one dug it up, a search for an answer did. What is someone supposed to do if a 2015 search yields no answer after pouring through endless previous years dialog (from people who quickly tire of discussing what they forget quickly becomes dated information), only posts dropping off in 2013? Is someone actually at fault for not having their question at the time of your discussion? The very same people criticize those who get frustrated by this and begin it as a new topic for not researching(the too-old-to-discuss topic). Just to set everyone straight, what exactly is the statute of limitations on old forum topic revival?
The forum is made up of tons of people, all of which have a different opinion.
Do you have an actual question about file system formats? If you do, then ask your question, either here or in a new post. Try to give as much information about what it is you really desire to keep the answers from going off the rails.
With respect to OS X, there are really 2 main stream file systems
Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Encrypted (FileVault - and this is the default on newly setup system these days)
External disks or partitions can have a few other formats such as FAT, exFAT
A style case sensitive file system (something you are only going to get from the command line diskutil), might be useful if and only if you have a project originally created on a Linux/Unix system and the authors mixed identically named files except for upper/lowercase letters in the same folder. But considering Windows and Macs have been using case insensitive file systems for at least 30 years, someone that created such a project must have been living in a cave.
Journaling is important to protecting the file system structurally metadata in case of a panic, or sudden loss of power. Scanning multi-terabyte file system after a system panic or power loss to insure all the file system metadata is intact is extremely time consuming. The Journal keeps track of metadata changes that are in progress, and the journal can be replayed to either complete the metadata change or undo it. But the end result is a file system that is not broken (my day job is as a file system developer for a not-Apple company). So if you want to talk about not using Journaling, I suggest it be a disk where you do not care about the data (a scratch disk), or a very small file system so that fsck_hfs has a chance of completing the metadata check in a reasonable mount of time (like minutes vs days).
Can some one help me out, I have a 32GB flash drive and i can't transfer a file bigger than 4GB. I have read ab changing the format to Mac OS Extended (journaled), but I didnt know that when changing the format i can only use it on Mac computers. i wanted to transfer a movie file so I can see it on my TV. But now my TV can't detect my flash drive. my question is: is there a format that I change my flash drive so I can transfer a file bigger than 4GB and still be able to use it on my TV or other devices?
Mac OS Extended (Case-sentive, journaled) vs. Mac OS Extended (Case-sentive, Journaled, Encrypted)
