Formatting hard drives for HD

I am preparing to transfer my first AVCHD footage from a demo Panasonic HMC150. I am using FCP7 on a new MacBook Pro 3.03GHz with 8GB RAM. I am planning to use two 1 TB internal hard drives with a 2 bay Blacx eSata dock through a Sonnet eSata Express34 card. How should I format the drives to work most efficiently? Also, will this system handle the HD? I think my plan is to convert to ProRes for the edit but I am really not sure yet. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Echoing others - don't use RAID. It'll only create problems.
I have two 1 TB Firewire 800 drives for video editing - one is exclusively my scratch disk, well the other I use to store project files, still images, exported files, encoding files, etc.
I did some speed test when I first got the drives and there was a negligible difference in speed between the RAIDed drives and un-RAIDed drives.
I would suggest you purchase a 2 TB USB drive to use a time machine volume. I know Time Machine isn't an ideal backup solution (I often turn it off when I'm editing) but it works.

Similar Messages

  • FORMAT HARD DRIVE FOR USE ON MAC AND WINDOWS

    I'm going to start working on scanning a lot of old family photos and getting them put on an external hard drive for my parents.  I'd also like to eventually put old VHS family home movies on the hard drive as well.  However, I'm not sure what to do about the hard drive.  I know if I format it to be compatible with my Mac it probably won't be compatible with their PC.  I read about the FAT32 option but I saw something about a file not working if it's over 4 GB in size.  I'm thinking maybe some of those home movies will be larger than 4GB.  I also saw an exFAT option.  If I go with that will I be able to scan the photos on my Mac, get the home videos converted and put it all on the hard drive will all of it be visible and usable on their Windows PC?
    Thanks for your help!

    matahari_1946,
    if you’re not yet backing up your Mac’s internal hard disk, I’d recommend first that you purchase an external hard drive for yourself for exclusive use as a Time Machine backup destination; that way, in case of a disk problem, you won’t permanently lose all of your scanned photos and imported movies.
    A 4 GB file limit does apply to FAT32 filesystems. If their version of Windows allows, the external disk which will hold those photos and videos should be formatted as NTFS from their PC, so that they can watch video files over 4 GB. (It’s unlikely that an individual photo file would be over 4 GB.) However, OS X doesn’t come out of the box with NTFS support. The exFAT filesystem is able to hold files over 4 GB, and it is supported by Mac OS X 10.6.5 and newer, but it’s optimized for flash drives; it’s more “fragile” on hard disks than other filesystems are. As a workaround, you could format a flash drive to have exFAT, copy videos over 4 GB onto the flash drive, and then use your parents’ PC to copy the videos from the flash drive to their NTFS external disk. Other alternatives would be to look for third-party software for OS X which supports reading from and writing to NTFS disks, or third-party software for Windows which supports reading from and writing to journaled HFS+ (the default OS X filesystem) disks.

  • Tricky stuff: formating hard drive for Mac and Windows

    Don't know how to format an external USB hard drive for these purposes:
    #1. Store a bootable backup for my MacBook (Intel)
    #2. Must be readable and writeable by both Mac OS 10.4 and WinXP (mainly for file storage)
    Can I do 2 partitions, with Mac OS Extended (journal) + GUID to serve purpose #1, and MS-DOS + Master Boot Record to serve purpose #2? My research suggests no, it seems both volumes must use either GUID or MBR? Thanks

    Hi,
    I have two Western Digital external HDs with nearly exactly these specs.
    Partitioned them with GUID partition scheme and have Partition 1 as bootable OSX clone and partition 2 with FAT32 for file storage/sharing between OSX and Windows.
    So, what you want is what I have/use right now.
    Regards
    Stefan

  • Formatting hard drive for project compatibility PC /Mac

    I'm editing a project for a friend who uses PC. I bought a Lacie Quadra d2 drive for the project. The media files I'm being give are DV and WMV files, which my friend will copy to the drive.
    So my question is: Will there be any compatibility issues and is there any way to avoid them?
    Should I (or how should I) format hard drive before giving it to my friend? And will I be able to take drive back as is and work with the files?
    I appreciate any guidance.

    Download this free driver: http://www.ntfs-3g.org/index.html#download and you can format the drive as NTFS, which both of you can read and write.
    Once installed, NTFS will appear as a formatting option in Disk Utility.

  • Apple Formats Hard Drive for Cosmetic Issue

    So I sent my Apple Macbook in for service for the well know discoloration problem and the "Geniuses" formated my hard drive! I immediately called them to complain but it seems for some unknown reason they only take complaints in the morning. So called back the following day and I issued the complaint. Surprisingly they actually had a reason as to why my hard drive was formated (it wasn't a good reason but a reason none the less). Basically they said that it was formated because I had a password on it and they could not get into the machine to test, which I told them that the login prompt alone was test enough and then asked why they didn't call for my password before they formatted and they said the person who took the original call should have asked me for that information which I immediately told them I was never asked for that information and that I would have happily given it to them if it avoided formating my hard drive so the representative looked at the audit log for the original call and saw that the tech never asked me for my login information among other things (which was a big mistake on there part) and then I asked again since they saw that the information was missing and that there was a password on the computer why didn't they call me before formating my hard drive (they did after all have all of my contact information), the representative had no answer to this. So I went on to explain how formating people's hard drives for no reason was a bad policy especially when their computer was sent in for a cosmetic reason. Anyway the complaint has been logged and now I may or may not get a call back from Apple. So far no call in five days which is why I figured I would post this, I guess if they don't call I'm pretty much SOL. So a little word of warning to anyone sending a computer to Apple for repair don't put a password on it and backup your files even if it is only a cosmetic issue.

    So -- everyone is always saying you should back up
    everything, but HOW? Do you all have DVD drives or
    external hard disks? Is there another way to do it?
    I have my most important documents on a pen drive,
    and my photos on a CD, and of course I have my
    application CDs, but nothing else. It took me MONTHS
    to get all my settings the way I like them and to
    download all the freeware I like to use, and I would
    have been HORRIFIED if my disk had been reformatted
    when my case was exchanged, just HORRIFIED!
    So do you all just invest in DVD writers and/or
    external hard drives, or just what do you do to keep
    it all backed up all the time?
    Get an external Drive, you can pickup a 250 gig drive for less than a hundred dollars these days.
    To the OP it's a shame that your drive was formatted and it should not have happened. However, this is why people backup their drives so when something unexpected happens, drive corrupt, bad customer service etc. you have all your important data and settings preserved.
    Mac Mini 1.66   Mac OS X (10.4.7)   60 gb hd, 2 gb ram, 250 gb ext drive, 5g ipod, 2g ipod

  • Format Hard Drive for Capture w/ FCP and use on PC?

    Can someone tell me how I can format a hard drive that will ultimately be used by a client with only PC's -- so that I can capture video on my Mac using FCP?
    In the past, I thought FCP broke up captured video into 2 GB segments when a hard drive was formatted for MS-DOS. But tonight I formatted my client's external hd using Disk Utility and the drive wasn't even available under system settings on FCP.
    I'm really not at all PC-savvy anymore...can someone tell me if there is way to do this?
    If it matters, I'm capturing home video from several sources: Canopus ADVC-300, and mini-DV tapes using a Sony camcorder.
    Thanks!
    Jenny

    Thank you so much. The NTFS-3G did the trick. I have one more dumb question (again...I'm completely PC-illiterate). Would .dv be the best format for me to capture video again for a client who is a home user of a PC? I was planning to capture with FCP (in .mov format) -- but perhaps for ease of use for the client, I should use Toast or iMovie and capture in .dv?
    Again...thanks for your help. This is the first time I've encountered this situation!
    Jenny

  • Can't format hard drive for time machine

    I couldn't find a better community for this question so here goes: I just purchased a 1 TB Toshiba hard drive to use as a Time Machine device.  I installed the NTFS software, but know I understand that I need to format it in HFS+ (MacExtended Journal) in order to make it work with Time Machine.  I have attempted to do this with Disk Utility but I keep getting "file system formatter failed error."  what to do?

    If this is the inexpensive Toshiba USB drive I suggest you exchange it for something else as they tend not to work well with Macs.
    Drive Preparation
    1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
    2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
    3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
    4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
    5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
    6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

  • Help formatting Hard Drive for best compatibility with Mac OSX 10.5!

    I have a 1TB hard drive that I recently purchased. I would like for format it for best compatibility with Leopard. I must be doing something wrong because everything I try, I get an error.
    Here's the details of my drive.
    What do I need to do in Disk Utility?
    Disk Description : WL1000GS A1672 Media
    Total Capacity : 931.5 GB (1,000,204,886,016 Bytes)
    Connection Bus : USB
    Write Status : Read/Write
    Connection Type : External
    S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
    USB Serial Number : 240077140FFF
    Partition Map Scheme : Master Boot Record
    Main Partition (Only managed to get it's name to CORY.):
    Mount Point : /Volumes/CORY
    Capacity: 931.5 GB (1,000,204,853,760 Bytes)
    Format : MS-DOS (FAT32)
    Available : 931.3 GB (999,959,166,976 Bytes)
    Owners Enabled : No
    Used : 1.4 MB (1,507,328 Bytes)
    Number of Folders : 0
    Number of Files : 0

    Looks like that's working. My problem was I didn't select GUID Scheme. Thanks.
    EDIT: Yup that did the trick. Thanks so much.

  • Advanced Format Hard Drive not recognized by HP DV6000 Controller

    Hello,
    I have an HP DV 6000 laptop (6276 I think, I'm at work can't check) that came preinstalled with a Western Digital 160gb 1.5gb/s 5400 RPM drive (Vista) that failed a couple of weeks ago.  So i bought a Western Digital 750 GB WD Black SATA III 7200 RPM 16 MB drive to replace it. I read about people having some problems with Advanced Drive Format hard drives not being recognized by their controller, but also read that depending on the controller and specific Dv6000 model laptop they had-one wouldn't run into problems. 
    Well sure enough, when attempting to install Windows 7 I received the error that the hard drive was not detected. After researching online I came across an article on WD's site that noted
    "Our SATA II hard drives use autospeed negotiation. This enables our SATA II drives to automatically detect the motherboard data transfer rate, making it backward compatible with SATA I data transfer rates. However, some older SATA I controllers are unable to support autospeed negotiation and cannot recognize the drive. This “drive not detected” condition occurs when a chipset is incapable of correctly negotiating the data transfer speed with a SATA II hard drive."
    my drive is a SATA ||| but I'm pretty sure it's the same problem.  The site goes on to say a fix would be to  "purchase and install a third party PCI or PCI-Express Second Generation Serial ATA controller card for your Serial ATA hard drive(s)."
    My question(s) are.
    1)Is the problem that I am trying to install a Sata ||| hard drive on a laptop with a controller that will only recognize SATA | hard drive?
    2) Or is the problem that the hard drive is an Advanced Drive Formatted hard drive and I need to buy a hard drive with out that specification?
    3) Or Should I buy a SATA controller card as WD suggests on their website and if so will this definitely allow my laptop's controller to recognize the new hard drive and proceed with the installation?
    4)Or Should I just return the hard drive and buy a SATA | non Advanced Drive Format hard drive? (question 2 basically)
    Thanks for your help!

    Hi @jasmine00 
    Welcome to the HP Support Forums.
    I certainly understand your issue with the drive upgrade. Unfortunately it is a bit of the nature of notebooks, the sacrifice of a large amount of upgradeability, in exchange for compactness and portability. Whenever a new technology comes out, older notebooks are never really going to be easy to upgrade, it at all. Normally the unit as a whole is tested with a set list of hardware, and only those items are supported.
    That being said there is this document that could be helpful with your problem.
    Preparing Advanced Format hard drives for Microsoft Windows installations on HP Business Notebook PC...
    And for your reference:
    HP Pavilion dv6000 Notebook PC Maintenance and Service Guide
    Malygris1
    I work on behalf of HP
    Please click Accept as Solution if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.
    Click Kudos Thumbs Up on the right to say “Thanks” for helping!

  • HP System Recovery DVD incorrectly formats hard drive (WIN Vista HP SP1 64-bit 510141-001)

    HP Pavilion DV4-1225dx
    Vista Home Premium 64-bit
    AMD Turion x2
    I had previously posted the issue as "HP System Recovery Fails on new HDD", however it appears that the reason it is failing is due to incorrect formatting of the hard drive:
    Went to purchase the oem HDD @ Tiger Direct (Hitachi 0A56415 Travelstar 5K320 Mobile Hard Drive - 2.5", 5400 RPM, SATA 3G, 250GB, 8MB Cache) but found it was out of stock. I purchased the suggested replacement  (WD Blue 320GB Mobile Hard Drive - Designed for everyday computing - 2.5", SATA 3Gb/s, 5400RPM, 8MB C...)
    I have attemptted the System Recovery several times each failing with errors. But after each failure the HDD is found to be incorrectly formatted as documented in the following link:
    System Recovery Fails on new HDD
    hp G71-340US WIN 7 HP 64 Bit
    hp pavilion dv4-1225dx VIsta HP 64 Bit
    hp pavilion zd7000 WIN XP Pro
    hp pavilion xv886 WIN Millennium / WIN XP Pro
    hp deskjet 6980xi
    hp pavilion xt236 / ze4200 WIN XP Media Edition

    Slolearner,
    After doing a little research, I believe your issue may be related to your new hard drive being an AF (Advanced Format) drive. Please see "WD Scorpio® Blue™ SATA/PATA Hard Drives", which indicates your WD3200BPVT may an AF drive.
    Please see "Cannot Recover the PC after Replacing the Hard Drive with an AF Drive (Windows 7 and Vista)" for information on this subject. While this document isn't for your specific computer, it is generic enough that it applies to your situation. If you wish to use your HP Recovery Discs successfully, you may need to purchase a non-AF drive.
    If your computer boots into Windows, please see "Identifying an Advanced Format Hard Drive" to download and run the HP Advanced Format Hard Drive Information tool.
    If it is an AF drive, please see "Preparing Advanced Format Hard Drive for Windows" and "Improving the Performance of an Advanced Format Hard Drive" for more information on the subject and possible steps to be taken to resolve your issue.
    Lastly, it may be necessary to follow Paul_Tikkanen's advice and install Windows Vista from a Microsoft Windows Vista installation disc as follows;
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    If you can still read the 25 character Microsoft Vista product key on the bottom of your PC, you can make your own plain Vista installation media and use that to at least get the OS on your PC.
    Here is how to do that if you can read that key:
    Please click on the link below, click on the Windows Reinstallation Guide [27-07-2013] pdf link on the upper left of the page and then read the instructions for doing this starting on page 302.
    http://philipyip.wordpress.com/dell-community-forums/
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    You may also consider purchasing a copy of Windows 7 and installing that instead. Windows 7 SP1 has much better support for AF drives than the previous versions of Windows.
    Please click the white KUDOS star to show your appreciation
    Frank
    {------------ Please click the "White Kudos" Thumbs Up to say THANKS for helping.
    Please click the "Accept As Solution" on my post, if my assistance has solved your issue. ------------V
    This is a user supported forum. I am a volunteer and I don't work for HP.
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    HP p6320y - Windows 7, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GT 240
    HP p7-1026 - Windows 7, 6GB RAM, AMD Radeon HD 6450
    HP p6787c - Windows 7, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GT 240

  • Compatible hard drives for OS 10.5.8

    I want to upgrade to Snow Leopard (I realise I'm behind the times), but need to back everything up first. Can I use any old external hard drive for this, assuming I format it correctly? I've been look at the Toshiba stor.e partner (it's cheap!)
    Thanks in advance for your help.

    Yes, you can use any formatted hard drive for backup. If you intend on using it for more than one use when you replace your existing hard drive, cheap may or may not be the best longer term answer. I like, and use, external hard drives from OWC, where many of the cases use Oxford chipsets, which work well with macs, and come with a 3 year warranty. For example, here's one that's very portable.

  • Can I format and use a Hard Drive for my mac if removed from a Desk Top PC

    Hi All,
    I wondered if you can help with some advise. I have a mackbook and love it, will never go back to pc. But, I have a desk top pc with a fairly sizable Hard Drive in it. Even though I also have a WD external Hard Drive for my macbook back up, would I be able to use my old desk top hard drive if I found a case for it to make it an 2nd external hard drive?
    Would I be able to format it for use with my mac? Or is it the bin for all the hardware?
    Thanking you in advance.
    Matt

    It'd work just fine. Apple uses pretty much the exact same parts every other computer maker does. The one exception is now they have a temp sensor cable connection built onto drives. Before they just stuck a little plastic clip on them at a specific spot. Other than that, it's no different from any other SATA drive you might buy at the likes of Best Buy or NewEgg. So as long as you partition the drive into a format readable by Mac OS X, there shouldn't be any problems.

  • How do i format an external hard drive for use on both windows and mac book air?

    how do i format an external hard drive for use on both windows pc and mac book air?

    Use exFAT on the PC.
    (71374)

  • One Format External Hard Drive for Your Mac and PC...

    I have Formatted my External HD Passport 500GB = (465.8) and split it in two partition Mac OS Extended (Journal = 232GB) and FAT32 (Ms-Dos-FAT = 232GB) and reformat to NTFS using Windows...
    How to use one External HUD for your Mac and PC you have a PC and how to have two Partition in Mac OS Extended (Journal) and FAT (Ms-Dos-FAT)as you desire the size of your partition under application, Utilities and Disk Utility and covert the (FAT32) to (NTFS)using Windows Control Panel or just search by Start, search Computer Management or just right my Computer and format the second partition to (NTFS)
    Tips for Mac OS Extended (Journaled) FAT32 vs NTFS, what works and don't work...
    (1)Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Partition can't be use in Windows to transfer files but NTFS Partition can be use in Mac by transferring file from Windows to Mac and NTFS support for files over 4G in size...
    (2)FAT32 can be use in Mac and Windows but with a limitation that a file cannot be transferred to a FAT32 partition if the file is larger than 4GB such as a video file and FAT32 file system performs more slowly than NTFS...
    (2)Mac OS Extended (Journaled) can be use in Windows when you Reformat your HD to HFS+ by third-party app such as http://www.macdrive.com/ MacDrive for $50.or http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/ NTFS For Mac 6.0 for $30...
    Reference link 1 External Hard Drive for Your Mac and PC...
    http://www.myfirstmac.com/index.php/mac/articles/1-external-hard-drive-for-your- mac-and-pc
    Best regards...
    JamesUFOs...
    http://www.youtube.com/user/JamesEBEs

    I have many external drives I use between my MacBook Pro and my Windows PC's. I use a free NTFS driver for Mac OS-X to give me full read/write access to any NTFS formatted partitions when running Mac OS. I also use MediaFour's MacDrive v8 on some of my Windows PC's to access any HFS+ formatted partitions.
    Most of my drives are formatted NTFS because I have more Windows machines than I have MacDrive licenses, and with the driver for Mac OS, they are fully accessible. I have a few drives I do keep formatted as HFS+ because I have encountered an app or two that don't work quite right when they don't get to write to files on an HFS+ partition (one of my backup programs is picky about this).
    As said before, FAT32 is fully accessible between the two OS'es but it also has it's own limitations.

  • How to Format Toshiba Hard-Drive for Mac with Parallels?

    Hello,
    I recently bought a Toshiba Hard-Drive with the following features:
    500GB
    It is a Canivo Basics 3.0
    It is USB 3.0 and 2.0 portable hard drive
    It has already been formatted NTFS for Windows XP, Vista, 7, and 8
    The box says that it can be reformatted for Mac
    I have a Macbook Pro with Retina Display that I bought this year in late March/early April.
    It runs OS X Mavericks, and Parallels Desktop 9 for Mac.
    I would like to reformat it so that I can use it on my laptop both with Windows and Mac OS at the same time. I do not wish to use a partition as I want to access the hard drive through Mac and Windows at the same time on my laptop and I also want to be able to access the Mac things on a Windows computer and vice versa.
    I have never formatted a hard drive before, and I would like to use a completely safe software, or no software at all, if it is possible.
    I am sorry but I don't have a very high knowledge of this.
    Thanks,
    Sandy-Wood

    It would be easier, using Parallels, just to format the drive for "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)". You can see it both in the Windows/Parallels and the Mac side. Leaving it formatted as NTFS is not going to allow you to access (write to) the drive unless you use third-party software. Formatting it for Mac lets you use it, as I said, on both the Parallels VM and the Mac side.
    If you were using Boot Camp, I would advise leaving it formatted as NTFS and purchasing NTFS for Mac to access the drive on both OS's. You can mitigate that by formatting the drive for Mac:
    Good luck,
    Clinton

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