Lacie Rugged Hard Disk User Manual - Page 25

5. Tech Tips 5. Tech Tips 5.1 File System Formats Important Note: If you will be sharing the hard drive between Mac and Windows operating environments, you will want to follow these guidelines: 5.1.1. Mac Users Mac OS 9.x • Works reliably with FAT 32 partitions less than 32GB Mac OS 10.x Users: The LaCie Rugged Drive with Triple Interface is pre-formatted as a Mac OS X prefers that all paritions be the same format, Mac OS Extended volume. You may customize the drive by therefore only the first FAT 32 partition is guaranteed to reformatting and/or partitioning the drive with separate file mount. system format formats. For optimal peformance in and partition the drive as one large Mac Mac OS OS environments, Extended Mac OS • Works Mac OS 10.1.x reliably with 10.2.x - FAT 32 partitions less than 32GB volume. • Works reliably with FAT 32 partitions less than Mac OS Extended (HFS+) 128GB Mac OS Extended refers to the file system used by Mac OS 8.1 • Does not mount FAT 32 partitions greater than 128GB and later. HFS+ represents an optimization of the older HFS file Mac OS 10.3.x - system by using hard disk space more efficiently. With HFS+, you • Mounts any FAT 32 drive of any size are no longer limited by block size. • Mounts NTFS volumes as READ-only MS-DOS File System (FAT 32) This is the Microsoft file system, more typically known as FAT 32. This is the file system to use if you are going to be using your LaCie Rugged Drive with Triple Interface between Macs and Windows operating systems. Tech Note: Mac OS 10.3.x Users - Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Under Panther, Apple introduced journaling to the Mac OS Extended file system, which helps protect the file systems on Mac OS volumes. When journaling is enabled, file system transactions are Mac OS Standard (HFS) maintained and recorded continuously in a separate file, Mac OS Standard refers to the file system used by Mac OS 8.0 called a journal. and earlier. Only use this file system if you are creating a volume In the event of an unplanned shutdown, the OS uses the smaller than 32MB, using a Mac with a 680X0 processor or journal to restore the file system. Journaling is also creating a file structure that will be need to be used by Macs backward compatible, and all volumes with journaling running Mac OS 8.0 or earlier. enabled can be fully used by computers not running Mac OS 10.3.x. For more information, please visit Apple's Web site. user manual | page 25