External HDD shares with PC and Mac

[tuckeratlarge]

I have an external Hard Drive attached to my router, it's formatted as NTFS. I can get the files on and off with my PC, obviously, and my Samsung TV streams films just fine.

 

I am to buy an iMac, I was wondering can I still get at the files on the external, even though it's NTFS?

 

If I save something from the iMac can a PC see and use them?

 

Can a Mac play .mkv?

[+KibosJ Subscriber²]

I have an external Hard Drive attached to my router, it's formatted as NTFS. I can get the files on and off with my PC, obviously, and my Samsung TV streams films just fine.

 

I am to buy an iMac, I was wondering can I still get at the files on the external, even though it's NTFS?

 

If I save something from the iMac can a PC see and use them?

 

Can a Mac play .mkv?

Without using software, Mac can read but not write to NTFS.

 

A Mac cannot play .mkv natively, you would need software for that too :) VLC/XPlayer/Plex/XBMC, etc.

 

The only option you have to allow Windows and Mac OS to play nicely together with file systems is ExFat, but I doubt your Samsung would be able to read ExFat, I know mine can't :(

 

You can enable NTFS write in Mac OS X but it's buggy and caused one of my NTFS drives to become unreadable by Windows, had to reformat.

 

I purchased Paragon NTFS to write to NTFS on Mac and purchased MedaiFour MacDrive Pro to Read and write HFS+ Drives, never had a problem with either bits of software :)

[tuckeratlarge]

Thanks

[+BudMan MVC]

Sorry but he clearly states he is sharing the disk from his router -- does not matter what format it is.. Be it fat, fast32, ntfs, ext4, xfs whatever - the act of sharing it across the network removes the need for the client to understand the file system.

 

As long as your router shares using a protocol that your mac understands your fine - I would assume the router is using cifs or smb..  Even NFS would be good - might even support AFP, etc.

 

Only if your "directly" connecting the disk to the OS does filesystem matter.  The device your using to "share" the disk needs to understand the filesystem since the disk is directly connected to it.

[+KibosJ Subscriber²]

Sorry but he clearly states he is sharing the disk from his router -- does not matter what format it is.. Be it fat, fast32, ntfs, ext4, xfs whatever - the act of sharing it across the network removes the need for the client to understand the file system.

 

As long as your router shares using a protocol that your mac understands your fine - I would assume the router is using cifs or smb..  Even NFS would be good - might even support AFP, etc.

Jesus! I have no idea how I missed that.

 

I'm sorry, BudMan is right. If it's shared from your router then it doesn't really matter, the mac should be able to read and write fine, depending on the protocol.

[tuckeratlarge]

Thanks again. Looks like I can use a Mac as simply as I use my PC. 

[+BudMan MVC]

^ well not sure I would say that ;)  ###### off one side of the camp for sure..

[game_over]

Thanks again. Looks like I can use a Mac as simply as I use my PC. 

 

Let us know if you think that in a few weeks after using SMB on a mac  :D

[+KibosJ Subscriber²]

Let us know if you think that in a few weeks after using SMB on a mac  :D

I've never had any problems with SMB on my Mac :S

[game_over]

I've never had any problems with SMB on my Mac :s

 

Not the case for me unfortunately.

 

I use a Mac at work and at home.. uses SMB in both areas.. it's works much better on a basic file share but it's not as fast as it could be, at work is a different story... random disconnects, slow, locks up, permission errors, etc... 

[+BudMan MVC]

And what are you running at work, is the mac part of the domain? Is work running smb, smb2 or smb3?

What has work done to secure shares, are they using encryption in smb3, or signing, etc. etc.

An enterprise will have many different aspects of SMB than simple home network - disconnects and permissions issue point more to misconfiguration between the AD? The network in general - are you wired or wireless at work/home?

As to speed - what are you seeing for speed? Are you saying your native windows client is faster than your Mac if file transfers? What kind of difference are you seeing. What is your server (sharing the files) and what is your clients accessing the file - what are their connection speeds, wired or wireless, etc.