Which external hard disk format (fat32 or ntfs) is compatible with macbook pro ?

Csound1, Do you need a hug? Don't be THAT guy(behind the keyboard). Be respectful. The guy was off by a couple numbers which didn't affect the person seeking information. Save that rude tone for the other sites that you use to vent.

Fat32 is the most portable format. Can be read/written by just about anything.

Deals with medium to large volumes (2TB) and reasonably large files (2GB).

NTFS is the native format for Windows NT. It can deal with really large files and volumes.

It can be read by Macs, and if you install some special software, NTFS can be written by Macs.

HFS+ can only be read by Macs, but can store really large files and large volumes.

• If the drive is for sharing - then Fat32 is the way to go.
• If you only plan to use it on a mac - use HFS+ (native to Macs). If you plan to use it for Time Machine, use HFS+.
• If you plan to share, and need to store really large files (e.g. videos > 2GB), then use NTFS.

Paul-nz wrote:

Ouch! Bad day? 🙂.

One other option you might want to consider is exFat.
Its supported on Mac and Windows, and even my TV!

Its got very large file (128PB) and volume size support.

Cheers.

Not again.

The OP wants this to use with a PS3, which does not support exFat. So that suggestion (while quite correct on its face) won't work.

Maybe this will help you.

1. Check what the File System type is. Do this by going to Start, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Disk Manager. Select the external drive and read the "File System" type. The file system type must be FAT32 in order for the PlayStation to recognize it.
2. Split larger, high quality files into smaller files, if necessary. FAT32 has a limit of 3.9 Gigabytes per file, which means some high quality HD movies might have to be split into smaller files, and that makes it less than ideal for some HD content.

2 for 2

Sandhu1994 wrote:

I Also wish to use the external hard diso with my ps3 which supports only fat32 . I was wondering if i could use it for may ps and mac aswell . So does fat32 work with mac os ?

Yes it does.

Ouch! Bad day? 🙂.

Anyway - you are right. My bad. 😊

4GB is, of course, the max file size for Fat32.

I think my comments about sharing and FS types still hold.

One other option you might want to consider is exFat.
Its supported on Mac and Windows, and even my TV!

Its got very large file (128PB) and volume size support.

Doesn't work out of the box with linux - but support is only an

"apt-get" away.

Cheers.

You can use either; by default, Mac OS X can't write to drives formatted as NTFS. You'll likely need to reformat the drive as Mac OS Extended.

(110508)

Use HFS+ (the native format for OSX) unless you want to share files with a windows machine.

If you are going to instruct me please check your facts

4GB is the single file size limit for Fat32, not 2GB.

You can use different formats except for NTFS.