Transferring LARGE files from Mac Pro to portable hard drive

I have a problem that I can't seem to find a direct answer to in regards to transferring very large video files from a Mac Pro to an external hard drive.


I have 4 QuickTime movie files with sizes of 32GB, 37GB, 35GB and 41GB respectively that I need to transfer from a Mac Pro to an external hard drive.

I know that I cannot transfer these files to an external hard drive that is formatted as NTFS (Windows NT File System).


My question is, can I transfer files that large to an external hard drive that is not formatted as NTFS?

If I have an external hard drive that is formatted as FAT32, will I be limited to the 4GB file limit?

Do I need to get a new external hard drive and format it as ExFat?

And is there a certain specification I should be looking for when purchasing an external hard drive for this purpose?


Here is what I am working with:

Computer:

Mac OS X Version 10.5.8

Quad-Core Intel Xeon


Video files:

QuickTime Movie (32GB and larger - approximately 1 hour of HD video for each of the 4 files, total of appox 4 hours of HD video)

HD files with Apple Intermediate Codec, Integer (Little Endian), Timecode


Thanks in advance!

Posted on May 12, 2014 10:20 AM

Reply
3 replies

May 13, 2014 8:44 AM in response to RichJGP

I use Paragon Software NTFS for Mac OS X and it is probably the best and maybe only supported NTFS driver for OS X up to Mavericks. Also, their HFS driver makes it seemless for accessing drives on both Windows and Mac safely and easily. And inexpensive as can be.


They also have conversion tool to allow non destructive change just as you would to convert FAT to NTFS only we are talking HFS.


Regardless, you should always have one if not more backups first before doing anything.


I would say if it was as easy as Cnet suggests there would not be a real need and market for Paragon, but that isn't the case.

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Transferring LARGE files from Mac Pro to portable hard drive

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