I need to transfer photos from a macbook to a pc. There are approximately 11,000 photos. What is the most efficient method of doing this? An external hard drive? Compatibilty issues? I know dvd's would work but I imagine that would require many dvd's.
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Help with transfering photos
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Pictures are non computer specific... jpegs work on anything. RAW files requires software from that cameras manufacturer to open on whatever computer you are working on. Best bet is put them on a partitioned external hard drive
yea I would agree with comment above, put them on an external hard drive and move them over.
You should have your photos backup on an external hard drive anyway. It's a really bad bad idea to have 11,000 photos located only on the main computer.
You should have your photos backup on an external hard drive anyway. It's a really bad bad idea to have 11,000 photos located only on the main computer.
An external drive is the best bet but otherwise just buy a crossover cable and set up a network between the Mac and PC and transfer them that way.
+1 for that.
Or use an external thumb drive, they use the same file system on Win/Mac. With an external hard drive, you run into the issue of what format it should be that can be read by the PC/Mac, etc.
Regarding the crossover cable ... pretty much any Mac that is still useful will not need a crossover cable. Any old ethernet cable will do since Macs have an auto-detecting ethernet port. The PC probably has one as well.
As for an external HDD, you can get around the Mac/PC issue by formatting it in FAT32. Both the Mac and PC will read/write to this format, but the largest file size allowed will be 4GB. Alternatively, you could format in NTFS, which the PC can read/write and the Mac can read. Should be enough to allow you to transfer to the Mac.
You are correct regarding the cable.
The OP is trying to move from the Mac to the PC, and most likely the drive is already formatted as NTFS, so s/he will not be able to write to it from the Mac.
If they do want to reformat the external drive to FAT32, then yes, that can be used by both machines.
Using a USB drive will probably easier and less of a hassle IMHO.
Whoops! My bad. I guess I figured that most folks go from Windows to Mac and not the other way around.
Thanks for all the replies. So i just bought a seagate external hard drive. It says PC compatible. Do I format it on the PC first and then plug it into the Mac to transfer the photos? Also I dont really need to transfer the pictures onto the pc. I just need to be able to take them off the Mac and be able to view them on the PC via the external drive.
You need to figure out if it's formated as FAT32 or NTFS. This is easy. Connect it to your Mac and try to save a file on it. If it works, it's FAT32. If not, it's NTFS and you'll need to format it as FAT32. You can do this on the Mac.
Go to Application > Utilities > Disk Utility. You should be able to see your new Seagate on the left column. Select it and click the Format (or perhaps Erase) tab. Select MS-DOS as the format. Then hit whatever button to make it work.
Just be real careful that you are formatting the correct drive.
ft
Format it on a Mac for Mac OS and install software on a PC that allows Mac drives to be read (and written to), such as MacDrive or NTFS for Mac. This way you will be able to read/write on both ends (so long as the PC has a copy of MacDrive, or some such, installed on it).
I bought a 160GB Toshiba drive about a year ago and just plugged it into my Mac with no issues. Any off the shelf drive should be readable by both Mac and Windows unless it has "Made for Mac" on the lable.
Dale
Edit: This is sounding more complex than it is. Simple test is to plug it into your PC and then try that on your Mac. If both machines see the drive, just move your pics.
Dale
Edit: This is sounding more complex than it is. Simple test is to plug it into your PC and then try that on your Mac. If both machines see the drive, just move your pics.
Most people who have two computers already have then on the same network. If so then you don't need an additional cable at all. Just "share" the folder then drag the images overs with a mouse.
If you don't have a network setup then a crossover cable is the cheapest way to go.
I'm with Chris, setting up file sharing would be the easiest way to go, however having the external hard drive does provide for additional backup.
If you have broadband internet with a router (an Airport, Linksys, etc) then you already have a network, just use the ethernet ports on the router.