Will Fat32 Partition interfere with iPhoto Library on separate partition? Does iTunes run poorly on FAT32 drive?

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Will Fat32 Partition interfere with iPhoto Library on separate partition? Does iTunes run poorly on FAT32 drive?

I just bought a 2 TB WD external hard drive. I also have a 1 TB WD hard drive and a 320 GB Iomega hard drive. I want to:

-Use the 1 TB drive to house my iPhoto Library

- Use the 320 GB drive on a PC to house an iTunes library. If plausible, I'd like this library to be able to be read on a Mac in the event that I no longer have access to said PC. If I understand correctly, the best way to do this would be to format the drive as FAT32?

- Partition the 2 TB drive into 3 partitions: 1 TB partition to back up my iPhoto drive, 320 GB partition to back up my 320 GB drive, and the rest for whatever. In this case, the 320 GB partition ONLY would be formatted as FAT32.

My questions:

-I read that iPhoto Libraries do not run well on a FAT32 formatted drive. Is this also true for iTunes libraries?

-With my iPhoto backup being on one partition of the 2TB drive and another partition on that same drive being formatted in FAT32, would I have any interference with my iPhoto Library backup from the FAT32 partition, even though the iPhoto Library backup's partition will NOT be FAT32?

-Anyone have any suggestions on a better way to go about any of this, particularly the iTunes library on the PC? It doesn't have to be Mac accessible right now, but I would just want to make sure I'd have the capability to access it on a Mac later if I the need came up.

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Jul 16, 2015 1:16 AM

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Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

194,761 points

Jul 16, 2015 1:35 AM in response to musicalmommy

As long as your iPhoto Library is on a partition formatted MacOS Extended (Journaled), it will not matter, if other partitions are formatted differently.

But Fat32 is a no-go for iPhoto Libraries, you are right, see: iPhoto: Issues with FAT32-formatted drives

The backup of your iPhoto Library needs also to be on a MacOS Extended (Journaled) portion, or you cannot restore the library from that backup - it will usually result in read/write errors if you try. And the backup of a library needs to be on a different volume, not only in a different partition than the original or you will not have a backup, when the drive fails. Then both the original and the backup will be gone.

I am not sure about the format required for iTunes. I asked our iTunes expert to jump in and help with that part of your question.

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Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

272,749 points

Jul 16, 2015 2:39 AM in response to musicalmommy

Hi. I don't think iTunes has any specific problems, but FAT32 should be avoided for larger disks. It is inefficient because it uses a larger cluster size on larger disks. It is also prone to errors, and they are harder to recover from if they occur. There is also a 4Gb max file size limit. Windows own utilities won't create a FAT32 partition larger than 32Gb so its main use these days is on portable thumb drives that you might move between systems.

On the PC you should format the drive as NTFS, and create the entire library on the drive. If you have an existing library see Make a split library portable. See also Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy. If/when you need to move the library to OS X you can either install an NTFS write driver or copy the entire library to an HFS+ volume. (OS X can natively read NTFS, just not write to it).

tt2

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