LaCie FIREWIRE 800/400 user manual Technical Information, File System Formats

LaCie Biggest Quadra	Technical Information
User Manual	page 43

7. Technical Information

7.1. File System Formats

■Mac Users

Mac OS 10.x Users

You may customize the drive by reformatting and/or partitioning the drive with separate file system formats. For optimal performance in Mac OS environments, for- mat and partition the drive as one large Mac OS Ex- tended volume.

Mac OS Extended (HFS+)

Mac OS Extended refers to the file system used by Mac OS 8.1 and later. HFS+ represents an optimization of the older HFS file system by using hard disk space more efficiently. With HFS+, you are no longer limited by block size.

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 Hard Drive between Macs and Windows operating systems.

UNIX File System

This is the file system based on UNIX, and is pref- erable for users developing UNIX-based applications within Mac OS 10.x. Unless you have a specific reason to use the UNIX File System, you should instead format your drive using Mac OS Extended (HFS+), because it provides Mac users with a more familiar operating ex- perience.

Important Info: If you will be sharing the hard drive between Mac and Windows oper- ating environments, you will want to follow these guidelines: Mac OS X prefers that all partitions be the same format, therefore only the first FAT 32 partition is guaranteed to mount.

Mac OS 10.1.x -

❖Works reliably with FAT 32 partitions less than 32GB

Mac OS 10.2.x -

❖Works reliably with FAT 32 partitions less than 128GB

❖Does not mount FAT 32 partitions greater than 128GB

Mac OS 10.3.x -

❖Mounts any FAT 32 drive of any size

❖Mounts NTFS volumes as READ-only

Technical 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 maintained and recorded continuously in a separate file, called a journal. In the event of an unplanned shutdown, the OS uses the journal to restore the file system. Journaling is also backward compatible, and all volumes with journaling enabled can be fully used by computers not running Mac OS 10.3.x. For more informa- tion, please visit Apple’s website.