FAT32 vs NTFS

[LeonJackson]

I just bought a 500 GB Western Digital external drive to store all of my torrents, music, and other stuff. The drive is formatted in FAT32, and my understanding is that it can only manage files up to 4GB in size. Is that a problem for any of the big torrents I'll be saving? Are the individual files within the Video_TS directories going to be small enough to work with FAT32? Are there any advantages to reformatting the drive in NTFS or maybe partitioning it with a mix of both? I use a Windows laptop, but I'm contemplating moving to Mac, and my understanding is that NTFS doesn't work well with Macs. I'm a complete newbie where all of this is concerned, but I wanted to start off on the right basis. Any advice would be gratefully received. Thanks!

[direwolf-pgh]

if you're on a mac format it with Disk Utility (Mac OS Extended (Journaled))

if you're on a windowz machine format it NTFS

do not keep FAT32.. yuck!

[LeonJackson]

Thanks for the superquick reply, Direwolf. NTFS it is!

[saltman]

yeah. NTFS.

lots of files are larger than 4gb... movie files, disc images, etc.

[optiplex2]

i think the limit is 3gb, i recommend you partition it in 2, so you have both ntfs and fat. its what i do cause i usually transfer from mac to pc so its helpful.

btw thats a very cute dog in your picture

[KustMichaels]

Actually you can use FAT32, since most FLACs you encounter are below 4 GB (which is the limit) and files in DVD file sets are 1 GB max. So, if Mac exchange is important, I'd go for FAT32. If you want to store video recordings, you might have files over 4 GB (HD videos for example). If you want the drive for Windows only, NTFS should be a no brainer. If you want to use the drive for editing your own recordings, then sure NTFS too. However, there are commercial software products that read NTFS on the Mac and HFS+ on Windows.