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Transfer years of photos

I have years of photos stored on an external hard drive. This hard drive is used on a PC. I only use this PC for photos only, cause I have trouble opening the photos while on any of my MACs. My goal is to somehow access them with my Mac computers and be able to back up the photos on my Airport Time Capsule and eliminate the PC for good. What is the best option to do this? I'm also up to the task if needed to transfer them over to a drive which is compatible with Macs.

Anytime help and advice for this would greatly be appreciated.

Thank you

Missy

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Sep 2, 2015 2:13 PM

Reply
3 replies

Sep 2, 2015 2:21 PM in response to jaxmimi

What format are the files in?? Are they straight jpg for instance dumped from a camera?? That makes it much easier than if the photos are contained in some application library.


What is the total MB or GB of files??


Do you have enough space on the Mac to store all the files?


If not are you going to plug in a USB or some other external drive?


You can use the TC as an intermediate.. ie copy the files from the PC to the TC.. and then TC to the Mac.. although that is a bit of wasted time it does perhaps make sense in having a backup of the originals.


What application are you going to import the photos into on the Mac??

Sep 2, 2015 5:12 PM in response to jaxmimi

There is a problem.. the only format the Mac and the PC share is FAT32 which is not good.


Windows will be NTFS and Mac will be HFS+ and both the Mac and PC have issues.. although there are tools to help read and write files.. I would not do it.


USB drive is great.. if your Mac is new enough to support USB3 they are cheap and fast and readily available..


I have a stack of HGST Touro.. 4TB. They work really well..


I recommend 3.5" drives over 2.5" unless you really need portable. In which case the Toshiba are good.


But the way to do this is over the network..


So I do recommend you have a go copying the files to the TC from the PC.. or copy them directly to the Mac.. as long as you use gigabit ethernet on both it is pretty fast.. that way you can use a Mac formatted drive.. which is really important to do this.. you will want to import the files then into iphoto or photos or some other App you will use on the Mac.


Another way .. use migration assistant for windows.. that will allow you to directly copy the files over the network.. with the help of a windows app.


See Windows Migration Assistant v1.0.5.7


The problem is migration assistant will tend to copy everything rather than just what you want.


What OS is your Mac? What OS is the PC?


Have you ever networked them.. ??


It is not that hard.


http://www.howtogeek.com/191116/how-to-share-files-between-windows-mac-and-linux -pcs-on-a-network/

Transfer years of photos

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