4 gig max (fat, ntfs etc)

[jojet]

Hello,


I'm a newbie. I 've a heavy hp laptop (4,4 kg) with XP and was thinking of giving my back some relief. I'm thinking to make the switch to a mac, and in this case the MBA (1.6hz). What I can't figure out is whether the mac has also an 4 gig max for files like XP with fat32. I want to use my MBA for internet and word and that kind of things but also as an extra backup for my photo's and video when I'm on the move. I want to film in avchd with memorycards of 8 gig and want to know if I could copy the complete file of 8 gig to the MBA. I've an imagetank but I can olny use for it mine photo's as it works with fat32 so the MBA would be an ideal solution for me: and a very light laptop and extra backup possibilities (these are not the main reasons for me to purchase the MBA, but when I've a problem with the 8 gig than I probably have to fall back to a Vista machine).


john

 

[bentoms]

The limitations will be the same. Just thing of the Air being a NORMAL PC in a fancy case!!

Why not reformat the Boot Camp Partition to NTFS? Whilst you won't be able to write to it from the Mac OS, it may get over the shortcomings?

 

[Prometheus2000]

The limitations will be the same. Just thing of the Air being a NORMAL PC in a fancy case!!

Why not reformat the Boot Camp Partition to NTFS? Whilst you won't be able to write to it from the Mac OS, it may get over the shortcomings?

Maybe these programms/tools can help to write on an NTFS drive, works fine with me on external hard and flash drives, didn't try it on my NTFS boot camp sofar...

Install in the given order
(1) MacFuse: http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/downloads/list
(2) NTFS-3g: http://www.ntfs-3g.org/

Now you even can format volumes in NTFS with the MacOS hard drive tool

A.B.

Edit: I just read here: http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/2008/02/ntfs-3g-12216.html that NTFS-3g might be buggy in terms of disappearing files and corrupted data. Seem one should always properly dismount all ntfs volumes before shutting down the mac. So be on you guard

 

[jojet]

Thanks,

For the fast reply's.

One further question: if I can't write from the Mac OS to an ntfs partition what is the purpose of making a ntfs partition?

john

 

[Prometheus2000]

Thanks,

For the fast reply's.

One further question: if I can't write from the Mac OS to an ntfs partition what is the purpose of making a ntfs partition?

john

Hi, I read your first post more carefully, so yes you can store files larger then 4GB on your Macbook harddrive, worked on my Macbook Pro when I had large HD video files copied on there...

To use NTFS, as I see it, it seems to be the only way to have a medium read- and writeable under Linux (my Ubuntu mounts NTFS read/write just fine), Windows and MacOS and not having the 4GB restriction. I would guess that Linux can understand the MacOS ext2 (?) file system, which also might be used in windows with an obscure driver called fs-driver http://www.fs-driver.org/ (if I am right, but that already once crashed my linux partition badly).

So especially if you plan to attach you external storage to other peoples Windows PC, NTFS might be the way to go.

But probably I got a bit confused with your questions, if you only want to know if you can place your 8GB memory card as image on the Macbook Air, I would say

YES WE CAN

Who agrees with me on that?

A.B.

 

[jojet]

Thanks A.B.

Yes, I just want the whole file on the "filmstick" to copy to the harddrive of the MBA as a backup when I'm on the move/holidays. And with some HD "stick camera's" you can use a 8gig stick so I will have a 8 gig file size.
I'm glad it is possible and that I don't have to do a hassle with the ntfs solutions (well, at least to me it seems a hassle) and it makes the MBA even more appealing to me.

john

 

[Prometheus2000]

Thanks A.B.

Yes, I just want the whole file on the "filmstick" to copy to the harddrive of the MBA as a backup when I'm on the move/holidays. And with some HD "stick camera's" you can use a 8gig stick so I will have a 8 gig file size.
I'm glad it is possible and that I don't have to do a hassle with the ntfs solutions (well, at least to me it seems a hassle) and it makes the MBA even more appealing to me.

john

I would like to get some "Air" as well but I am very comfortable with my MBP, just love it.

 

[ayeying]

The limitation if FAT32. If you were to use that hard drive format, you'll be limited to single files no larger then 4GB. For NTFS (NT File System) it can be LARGER then 4GB. XP Supports NTFS and uses NTFS as a primary hard drive format. Why you're using FAT32... I have no idea.

OSX uses HFS+ Journaled file format, it is similar to NTFS (lets not compare which is better or has more features here) in terms of single files being bigger then 4GB. Both HFS+ and NTFS can have SINGLE files larger then 4GB, ex. an avi movie thats 5.5GB big.

Having a 8GB memory stick doesn't always means the file would be 8GB big, unless you use the entire stick for one video film captured by the camera. You can copy a folder thats larger then 4GB without any problems as long as a SINGLE file is no bigger then 4GB. I can easily copy a 20GB folder to a FAT32 (which has a limit of 4GB file size) without any errors so long my folder doesn't contain files bigger then 4GB.