likealot Posted July 8, 2017 Share #1 Posted July 8, 2017 Advertisement (gone after registration) I am planning to use an WD Elements external hard drive (2TB) to store the Raw files and wanted to ask if I should format the drive before use mith a Mac? If yes, should I choose FAT32 or exFAT? Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted July 8, 2017 Posted July 8, 2017 Hi likealot, Take a look here Formatting external hard drive for Lightroom?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
pop Posted July 8, 2017 Share #2 Posted July 8, 2017 If you are going to use the drive with a Mac, use the Mac's file system so that it can deal with problems with the drive when they occur. Both FAT32 and exFat are foreign to the Mac. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted July 8, 2017 Share #3 Posted July 8, 2017 (edited) I will bet that you will find it ready-to-use, as is. I defer to Pop on this. . Edited July 8, 2017 by pico 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanT Posted July 8, 2017 Share #4 Posted July 8, 2017 You should be able to purchase the drive specifically for use with a MAC. I've purchased them from both Amazon and B&H in New York. The come already formatted for MAC. Just plug it in and you're ready to begin setting up folders etc and transferring files. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted July 9, 2017 Share #5 Posted July 9, 2017 What is the problem? Any Mac comes with Disk Utility, which means you can format any disk to Mac OS extended if so desired, or any other format one wishes. Why pay extra for something you can do yourself? It only takes three minutes. I would always format an external disk to FAT32, as Mac OS has no problems reading and writing in that format, whereas a Mac formatted disk cannot be read by a Windows computer, which can be very unpractical. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pop Posted July 9, 2017 Share #6 Posted July 9, 2017 ... I would always format an external disk to FAT32, as Mac OS has no problems reading and writing in that format, whereas a Mac formatted disk cannot be read by a Windows computer, which can be very unpractical. I do not recommend this for the permanent storage of my work. For one, the FAT file systems do not support all properties and attributes of a file system designed for permanent storage. Secondly and even more important, the native file systems of all major operating systems keep journals of all operations performed on the disk. So, in the rare case of a system crashing or a disk becoming separated from the computer or losing power while any writing is going on, the chances are much better that the system may recover the data and the free space on the disk. Other advantages of the native file systems over the FAT ones are not so important when the usage pattern consists of storing each directory and file once and retrieving many times, without changing many files or directories once written. Should you ever wish to migrate from MacOS to another OS, replacing the 2GB disk and formating it to the native format of the new OS would not break the bank. However: storing the photographs on one disk only is a desaster waiting to happen. Always keep multiple copies on multiple media and store them in different sites, if at all possible. In any event, storing your work on an external disk is a good start. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Exodies Posted July 9, 2017 Share #7 Posted July 9, 2017 Advertisement (gone after registration) I smell a start-up. Off planet data storage. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted July 9, 2017 Share #8 Posted July 9, 2017 Should you ever wish to migrate from MacOS to another OS, replacing the 2GB disk and formating it to the native format of the new OS would not break the bank. However: storing the photographs on one disk only is a desaster waiting to happen. Always keep multiple copies on multiple media and store them in different sites, if at all possible. In any event, storing your work on an external disk is a good start. I was referring to the case that one might want to use the disk on both platforms. I agree fully the storing on one disk is insufficient backup. I use a RAID mirror in my computer, a seperate backup data disk , an external disk in my safe and one at my work - where I have Windows computers . I wish it would not take weeks to upload to online storage (I am approaching 4 TB). Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
likealot Posted July 9, 2017 Author Share #9 Posted July 9, 2017 Thank you guys. I will stick with the format that the drive came with (it was indeed preformatted for a Mac). I dont use Windows at all so should be fine. As for multiple storage I fully agree. I tend to transfer all the shots to my hard drive and then after sifting through them I keep only the important shots on the SD card. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
zeitz Posted July 13, 2017 Share #10 Posted July 13, 2017 SD cards are not designed for long term storage. HDDs have relatively poor mean-time-between-failure. Samsung SSDs advertise extremely long mean-time-between-failure. I have yet to have a Samsung drive fail while I have had HDDs fail regularly. I would be interested in others' experiences with SSD failures. I'm paranoid about drive failures and failures of the devices that hold the drives. (I have had WD external books fail leaving the drive hard to physically get to and unreadable.) As a result I have every one of my files stored on 7 different drives, including three RAIDs. I can't imagine the time required to move the number of files I have to on-line storage. At a typical auto race I often fill 256GB of XQD cards. Video files are a unique challenge, especially 4K files. I tried Drobo Transporters and didn't like them either. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted July 13, 2017 Share #11 Posted July 13, 2017 I sympathize with our friends who have gigabytes, possibly terabytes to back up, and I look forward to more good information. In the meantime, I can store all my good photos on a thumb drive. . 4 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
likealot Posted July 14, 2017 Author Share #12 Posted July 14, 2017 SD cards are not designed for long term storage. HDDs have relatively poor mean-time-between-failure. Samsung SSDs advertise extremely long mean-time-between-failure. I have yet to have a Samsung drive fail while I have had HDDs fail regularly. I would be interested in others' experiences with SSD failures. I'm paranoid about drive failures and failures of the devices that hold the drives. (I have had WD external books fail leaving the drive hard to physically get to and unreadable.) As a result I have every one of my files stored on 7 different drives, including three RAIDs. I can't imagine the time required to move the number of files I have to on-line storage. At a typical auto race I often fill 256GB of XQD cards. Video files are a unique challenge, especially 4K files. I tried Drobo Transporters and didn't like them either. Holy Christ! My friend why dont you go for online storage and put an end to your suffering? I agree, nothing lasts forever however the human race has managed to save memories for centuries without resulting to such drastic measures. May I ask, purely out of curiosity, what made you decide 7 drives? Why not 5 or 9? I need to clarify that I am not a professional but merely an amateur. I will take about 1000 photos per year and out of those will keep about half. Out of the half that I keep I will print the most important ones (around 200). I've been using digital cameras for the last 15 years and only in the past 3-4 years started shooting Raw. My entire photo and movie library over the past 15 years is about 150Gb max. For now I am very happy with the storage options I have chosen. If all of my drives decided to fail at the same time then it is meant to be. At least I have the most important ones printed. SSDs might be superior to the HDDs however the only time I would consider buying one is when the cost of a 2TB SSD drops to about £80. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted July 14, 2017 Share #13 Posted July 14, 2017 Holy Christ! My friend why dont you go for online storage and put an end to your suffering? Could it be the long transfer times? And what's to say that cloud storage will not fail? Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Exodies Posted July 14, 2017 Share #14 Posted July 14, 2017 Could it be the long transfer times? And what's to say that cloud storage will not fail? Cloud storage is additional to local storage. Their failure rate is minuscule and add to that your local copy. Nothing to worry about. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
LocalHero1953 Posted July 14, 2017 Share #15 Posted July 14, 2017 For now I am very happy with the storage options I have chosen. If all of my drives decided to fail at the same time then it is meant to be. At least I have the most important ones printed. SSDs might be superior to the HDDs however the only time I would consider buying one is when the cost of a 2TB SSD drops to about £80. You haven't been here long enough. In a couple of years we'll have you so paranoid about storage and backup that you'll have no time for photography. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
semi-ambivalent Posted July 15, 2017 Share #16 Posted July 15, 2017 Thank you guys. I will stick with the format that the drive came with (it was indeed preformatted for a Mac). I dont use Windows at all so should be fine. As for multiple storage I fully agree. I tend to transfer all the shots to my hard drive and then after sifting through them I keep only the important shots on the SD card. Take jaapv's advice. (re-)Format the drive using your Mac's Disk Utility. And be careful where you point it; I once told /dev/zero to output to what should have been a floppy. Wondered why it was taking so long... Anyone here remember the Iomega click of death? s-a Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
likealot Posted July 16, 2017 Author Share #17 Posted July 16, 2017 You haven't been here long enough. In a couple of years we'll have you so paranoid about storage and backup that you'll have no time for photography. No antidote found so far for 'paranoias digitalis'? :D Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathi F Elder Posted August 2, 2019 Share #18 Posted August 2, 2019 Format the drive using any file system that can be read and written by the operating systems you intend to use to access it. Consider using exFAT. It has widespread support across devices since it was adopted as the default file system for SDXC cards by the SD Card Association. Every time you want to permanently delete files on your USB drive, you don’t have to format it again. You can just use a reliable file shredder to conveniently erase files in a secure way. iMac-Cleaner File Shredder does just that. You can use it to delete confidential files on your Mac, external hard drives, and SD cards as well. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathi F Elder Posted August 8, 2019 Share #19 Posted August 8, 2019 On 2019/8/2 at PM1点50分, Kathi F Elder said: 使用可由您打算用于访问它的操作系统读取和写入的任何文件系统格式化驱动器。考虑使用exFAT。由于它被SD卡协会用作SDXC卡的默认文件系统，因此它在各种设备上得到了广泛的支持。 每次要永久删除USB驱动器上的文件时，都不必再次格式化。您可以使用可靠的文件粉碎机以安全的方式方便地擦除文件。 iMac-Cleaner File Shredder就是这么做的。您可以使用它来删除Mac，外部硬盘驱动器和SD卡上的机密文件。 Read more:https://www.imymac.com/file-shredder/how-to-format-a-flash-drive-on-mac.html Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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