How to use an external drive with 2 Macs?

Using an external drive for LR 5.4 files and can download and view without any issues on my MacBook. However, when the same drive is attached to my iMac I cannot download or view any files on the external drive that were added after March of this year. Any ideas on how to go about resolving this issue?

The following screenshot might be helpful. It shows where in Lr preferences you can configure which catalog Lr uses as the default. If you need to direct it to an external drive then use the 'Other' option to point to this drive then next time Lr launches set it back 'Load most recent catalog'

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How to use seagate external drive with Mac

i have just purchased a SEAGATE EXPANSION EXTERNAL DRIVE, USB 3.0...can i use it with my Mac OXS....10.7.4....

No trouble for a few minutes, then I have to go out.
Re 'Too much detail'   When you ask a question such as the one we are working on, suitable detail would be ...
I have an (Apple item, iMac,model etc) running on (OS X 10.7.4).   I have just purchased a Seagate (size, model etc) external drive and would like to use it for (list uses).   Then ask specific questions.
If I can make this observation.    You appear to have gone out and bought a Seagate drive from somewhere without knowing what it will be used for.   They are not cheap.
It may be worth while to go and talk to whoever sold it to you and ask how you can best use it to meet your needs ... or if they will advise you how to set it up.
Most decent shops will oblige.
But if it was an on-line purchase then my original suggestion of talking to Seagate is probably the best line to take.
Hope you find all this helpful.
Message was edited by: seventy one

How to use the external screen with mac book closed?

how to keep my macbook on when the screen is folded down?

thanks! have to have both mouse and keyboard? can i just have either one? do they have to be apple mouse or keyboard? can i still have it running without any usb things connected? (ie when i am just using it to connect to a TV for movie)

Using an external drive with shared files (iPhoto, iTunes), attached to a Time Capsule, can the contents of the external drive be backed-up to the internal Time Capsule drive? Perhaps a RAID1 mirror to a partition?

Using an external drive with shared files (iPhoto, iTunes), attached to a Time Capsule, can the contents of the external drive be backed-up to the internal Time Capsule drive? Perhaps a RAID1 mirror to a partitioned Time Capsule? I understand that the Time Machine (software) cannot backup a networked drive (the external) and that Time Capsule (the router/wireless hard drive) does not have its own backup software... so it won't backup the connected drive. What I would like is an alternate solution for having an automated backup of a networked drive. A 2TB Time Capsule has more than enough space for Time Machine backups of my family of Macbooks, so I had hoped to mirror a 500GB external drive (with shared media files) to a portion of the Time Capsule internal hard drive. I assume this would require a partition of the Time Capsule drive. If not, would the sparse file from the various computers being backed up need to be copied to the external drive as part of the RAID1 setup? This seems like overkill for the Time Machine backup, but it would cover the media files.

The complexity with this idea is the software has to run from a Mac computer on your network.. so you need a Mac turned on, probably most of the day.
It isn't possible to partition the TC although you can create a image area.
The software would have to copy the material, that means all files to be copied, go from USB drive, back to the Mac, then back to the TC, and written to the drive. In other words you have just added Network congestion, although a proper incremental backup type software will not actually use a lot of capacity.
Finally it will be slow.. network drives are slower than internal drives. Well USB connected drive is much slower than the same drive connected directly to the computer.. and if the drive is connected directly to a computer it can be shared with the network.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4577/airport-extreme-5th-gen-and-time-capsule-4th- gen-review-faster-wifi-/4
Read carefully the speed of the USB drive plugged into the TC.

Re: Leone's post May 2014 about how to best use an external drive with Aperture

I am trying to find Leone who had a great post May 2014 to Diane. I posted tho same message as a 'Reply' to the Leone/Diane posts but then was worried it would not show up since that was some time ago so I decided I should post it as new. Apologies if it comes through twice. I am having trouble as indicated below:
I found this response to the question about Aperture and external hard drives from last May. I bought a WD My Book 4TB and need to back up photos I have in Aperture (many!) to free up space. I am a photographer and need to be able to plug the external drive in as needed, pull a photo out from the WD and back into Aperture to work on it if needed.
I read your directions to Diane and have the external drive formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I read the two ways you suggest to move part or all of my library to an external drive and still be able to use it in Aperture with all the metadata saved, as I need to continue to work with the images. I am not completely clear about the advantage of the 'referenced' method but decided to go with the Split Library because it sounded like the Referenced method would still keep originals (and take space) in Aperture. I'm not sure about this, but that was what I chose.
I have backed up my computer, formatted the drive then went to Aperture to begin. I do the 'Export' and it shows the external drive it will go to but when I click 'OK', it says "EXPORT LIBRARY FAILED - Library could not be create because the file system of the destination volume is not supported." I doubled checked to be sure the drive was Journaled which it was. I did call WD and talk to them but they told me this was outside their area.
Also, in Aperture, I have my photos in Projects by yymmdd. Is it possible to transfer Projects into the ext. drive without having to break them out of the Projects?
Any direction anyone might give would be greatly appreciated, Sandy

Hi Sandy,
I suggest taking a week or two to get to know Aperture better before proceeding. Aperture can do many things, and can do what you want. It's important to be specific about what you want, however. From what you've said, it appears that you don't yet know.
bybeeler wrote:
[1] I found this response to the question about Aperture and external hard drives from last May. I bought a WD My Book 4TB and need to back up photos I have in Aperture (many!) to free up space.
[2] I am a photographer and need to be able to plug the external drive in as needed, pull a photo out from the WD and back into Aperture to work on it if needed.
[1] A back-up is a copy of digital files stores on a separate device. A back-up is recommended because drives fail, and humans make mistakes. A back-up is not used to free up storage space.
[2] Aperture can be set up in many equally-usable ways. The program files reside (almost always) on your system drive. The data files can be anywhere you want them, as long as they are on locally-mounted drive(s). The main data file is your Library. The best place for it is on the drive that has the fastest throughput to your logic board. This is, in nearly 100% of machines, the system drive. But Aperture functions well with Libraries of secondary drives — internal or external — with sufficient throughput. USB-3 and Thunderbolt I (& II) provide sufficient throughput for using an Aperture Library on a secondary drive.
Nearly all photographers will fill whatever storage space is available (making data is what photographers do). The question is: what do you do when your Library no longer fits on your system drive? (And remember, you should leave at least 10% (I recommend 20% for heavy users of Aperture) of your system drive free.) The answer depends, primarily, on whether your computer is portable or fixed in location.
If fixed, just buy a more-than-large-enough secondary drive of USB-3 or faster throughput, mount it permanently, and move (using Finder) your Library to it.
If your computer is portable (and you can't increase the on-board storage), you have to select the best from several confusing alternatives:
• Put your Library on an external drive with throughput at least as fast as USB-3
— Pros: Easy to maintain and back-up.
— Cons: Must have drive with you in order to use your Library.
• Leave your Library on your system drive, but relocate your Images' Originals to an external drive.
— Pros: You can work on your Library without having the external drive available.
— Cons: You can't export (except Previews), Print, or make adjustments until your external drive is mounted. Significantly more difficult to administer, especially importing and backing-up.
• Leave your Library and and _some_ of your Images' Originals on your system drive, and relocate most of your Image's Originals to an external drive.
— Pros: You can do any work on those Images whose Originals are stored in the Library regardless of where the external drive is.
— Cons: Yet another level more difficult to administer.
If you are comfortable with the administrative overhead, the third set-up will be the most rewarding. Keep all _current_ Images Originals inside your Library, and routinely relocate the Originals of Images no longer current to the external drive.
In no case is it recommended that you at any time remove from your Library an Image (not the Original — the Image in Aperture) that you expect to ever use again.
HTH,
—Kirby.

How do I use an external drive with iTunes

I want to use an external drive (Windows XP & USB) for My Music Library. iTunes is running on the 'C' drive and points to the external drive. When I 'add folders' the music is available and plays, but I don't have my playlists or the play count / last played data. I have copied the 2 iTunes Library files into the exact same location on the external drive (My Music\iTunes). Either iTunes or Windows moves these files to the 'C' drive My Music\iTunes folder, and I don't have problem with these files on the 'C' drive as long as the music/video files reside on the external drive. I would like to set this up so the external drive looks and responds just like if the library was on the 'C' drive.
Can someone help me get this right so it works?
Thank you very much
iPod 60GB Video Windows XP USB 120GB External drive w/42GB of My Music

Have a look at this article in the Apple Knowledge Base.

Using an External Drive with 2 machines

I presently use my external drive to store the images, and work off LR on Laptop 1, ie the LR folders are all on Laptop1. The external defaults to Drive F on Laptop 1.
I want to use a desktop (2) with the same external drive. In this case, the external Drive defaults to Drive G when connected to my desktop.
What files/folders do I need to transfer from Laptop to Desktop, and should I be concerned about the drive letter defaults?
Thank you.

The complexity with this idea is the software has to run from a Mac computer on your network.. so you need a Mac turned on, probably most of the day.
It isn't possible to partition the TC although you can create a image area.
The software would have to copy the material, that means all files to be copied, go from USB drive, back to the Mac, then back to the TC, and written to the drive. In other words you have just added Network congestion, although a proper incremental backup type software will not actually use a lot of capacity.
Finally it will be slow.. network drives are slower than internal drives. Well USB connected drive is much slower than the same drive connected directly to the computer.. and if the drive is connected directly to a computer it can be shared with the network.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4577/airport-extreme-5th-gen-and-time-capsule-4th- gen-review-faster-wifi-/4
Read carefully the speed of the USB drive plugged into the TC.

Using separate external drives with Timemachine to backup internals?

I have a Macpro with 4 internal drives. Can I use 4 separate external drives with Timemachine to back up each of the 4 internals?
Thanks.

I do not want to use them all at the same time, I want to be able to plug in one external drive to backup all of my photos on my 2nd internal drive and later plug in another external drive to back up all of my videos on my 3rd internal drive.
Can Timemachine be used this way?
Thanks.

How to format an external drive for mac AND pc use

i want to format my external drive so i can use it on my mac and on pc's as well. i've gathered that the MS-DOS format is the way to go. my question is this: would this create any problems for my mac then?
can i partion one part for ms-dos and part for macos extended?
cheers
-j-

MS-DOS format (or FAT32) will be fine for both Mac and PC. However there is a 4GB file size limit with FAT32.
You could use a dual partition, however the HFS+ partition would not be readable by the PC unless you installed the third party MacDrive.
Look at this page for more information on a dual partition drive for Mac and Windows.
http://macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030613121738812
iFelix

Reliably use one external drive with iTunes files with two computers?

Hi all,
I have an iMac with a 200GB external firewire drive as my main desktop. I also have a 12" Powerbook that I use around the house. I've also used the PB to stream music from my iMac to my stereo. I have the odd bit of trouble with this, music stopping and not reconnecting etc.
We had a party last weekend and to stop the problems with wireless streaming occuring, I unplugged my firewire drive from my iMac and plugged it in downstairs to my Powerbook.
To get the files to appear in iTunes on the PB, I had to drag everything across to from the finder to iTunes. After a while everything was there.
The party went well: one visit from environmental health telling us to turn things down, and one visit to accident and emergency.
Next day, I returned my firewire drive to to my iMac and now every track in itunes has an exclamation mark next to it.
I know how to sort this out, and I'm not bothered about losing my playlists: what I want to know is a safe method to allow me to move my harddrive around and make sure it's all OK when I plug it into my iMac again.
Any ideas?
I suppose I probably left on the "Organise the music into folders" option when I first plugged in the drive to my PB and the files have actually moved a bit. Would making sure that this was set on both machines be a food thing to do?
Cheers
Stuart

I suppose I probably left on the "Organise the music into folders" option when I first plugged in the drive to my PB and the files have actually moved a bit. Would making sure that this was set on both machines be a food thing to do?
That probably changed the file locations, presumed the 'Organize' option was turned off on your iMac.
Now your 'iTunes Library' file (iTunes' database) on the iMac can't find the files.
It's a good thing to have the option turned on (or off) on every Mac you connect your external drive to.
I used to have my library on an external disk too. The only thing I had to take into account was to copy the 'iTunes Library' file from one computer to the other when connecting my external HD.
Never ran into problems.
More info about the library files here.
If you're running OS X 10.4, you could create an Automator workflow to copy the file to your external HD and another one to copy it from the external HD to the Powerbook.
Hope this helps.
M
17' iMac fp 800 MHz 768 MB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.6) Several ext. HD (backup and data)

Using an external drive with iMovie HD

I just received and formatted my external drive. At first I chose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and Zero out data. When I got info (⌘+I) of the drive afterwards, it had 79 MB being used, journalling? So I then Erased it and chose Mac OS Extended and now it shows 59 MB as being used, whatever for IDK.
Does it matter which format I use for working with iMovie, journaled or not?
In the Get Info window there is an Ignore Ownership option. I know it doesn't need to be ticked when an OS is going to be loaded on the drive but am wondering if I should tick it since the drive is only going to be used mainly for iMovie projects and no OS is going to be loaded.
Should I tick Ownership or leave it off?
I have iMovie projects that have not been edited yet and a iDVD project on my internal drive.
Can I just drag and drop or copy and paste the iMovie projects to the external drives icon and delete the project from my internal drive to create a little more space? Is it simple as that?
Same thing with the iDVD project after archiving it first? Copy/Paste,Drag/Drop and delete.
I've got a backup drive but use SuperDuper! so I don't have any experience with using 'scratch?' drives.
I've read elsewhere on this Discussion site that the finished iMovie projects need to be on the internal drive in order to transfer to and edit in iDVD.
How and where do I move the project to from the external? Drag/Drop or Copy/Paste to my Desktop then Drag/Drop, Copy/Paste to iDVD, or some other way?
Thanks.

About Journaling: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107249
About Ownership: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh669.html
I am not sure zeroing out data on a SATA drives "marks" bad blocks/sectors. I think this may have only been on SCSI drives. I couldn't find a reference that it behaves this way on a SATA drive. Thus the only advantage being that it more securely erases files.
The click and hold works the same on a PB!
Mike

Kernel panics on LaCie external drive with Mac Mini

Hi there.
I recently purchased a LaCie external drive to use with my Mini. My intent was to boot from the LaCie drive and use the Mini for backup. Everything was working well until I upgraded the LaCie drive to 10.4.6. I started to get a kernel panic once a day. I reinstalled the OS (I have disks up to the 10.4) but held off doing software upgrades so I could try to isolate the cause of the kernel panic. I couldn't. I currently get the panic notice every few minutes, regardless of the version.
I am planning on taking both drives to the Mac store on Monday, but am wondering what my options are. Is it okay to use the LaCie drive as my start-up or should I get a bigger drive installed in the Mini and use the Mini as my start-up instead?
Is there any chance I can solve this kernel panic problem on my own? Reinstalling, running disk utilities, etc hasn't helped.
Thanks for any insight you can provide.
Barb
Mac Mini Mac OS X (10.4.6) 40 gig Mini plus 250 gig LaCie external

ok first off how big of external drive
the reason i ask is this
on some external inclosures designed for the mac mini exceed 120 gig to 220 gigs you will have some major issues one is kernal panic one is the mac os x desktop becomes unstable and certain applications will crash like utilitys and even system preferences
and your dvd software will also have trouble playing dvds
i ran into this on a g3 tower and the same thing happens on certain models of laptops but i have never heard of this happening on a mac mini this is a first

Using an external drive with migration assistant

I have used disk utility to clone the hard drive on my defective MacBook to a Maxtor external drive.
Will I be able to use migration assistant with the external drive when I get a new MB?

Thanks, would I choose "From another Mac" or "From another Volume in this Mac" under Migration Method?

Two computers using same external drive with TM?

This will probably display my ignorance, but my daughter just got a macbook with leopard installed, and I'm planning on upgrading to leopard on my iMac.
So long as it has enough gigs, can I purchase only one external drive and use TM to back up both computers to the same external drive?

Definitely yes.
That's what I'm doing. I have a 250GB external drive connected to my iMac, and this drive hosts the TM backup of the imac and of my 2 macbooks.
The drive is always physically connected with the iMac. Macbooks backup over network. Setup is easy too: first make sure your laptop can see the backup drive as a network share. Then set it as the TM drive. That's it.
The only issue I found is that somehow my macbooks don't do automatic backups every hour no matter how I configure it. I have to right-click on TM icon and choose "backup now". This is yet to be figured out. Other than that, everything is great.

Can't use two external drives with time machine

I have 2 external drives. I tell time machine that I have 2 and it asks if I want to use both. I say yes and it says it will alternate between them. However, after backing up to both, it then will invariably say that one doesn't have enough room for backup...as if it is trying a new backup...... rather than just adding changed files. Why is it doing this and how do I remedy?

It then will invariably say that one doesn't have enough room for backup
Unfortunately, these kinds of things are common with Mavericks. All that you can do is erase the drive and start over again with a new backup. Or, if you do not want to erase the drive, set it aside in a safe place and add a new drive....and Mavericks will make a full backup to that one to start things off.

How to use an external drive with 2 Macs?

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