Dave,

I have a raid Terrabyte WD external and it was NTSF, but I bought a 500 gig WD Essential and it was FAT 32. I always check them just to make sure. I could care less about the back up features so I just format NTSF and go on my way.

j razz

I have yet to see an external drive that is not formatted FAT32. I believe that that is because this allows them to put the words "Mac compatible" on the box.

Formatting takes a while and is not required. Assuming your drive is on E:

convert /fs:NTFS E:

will do the trick, and you can even do that with data on the disk, the data will not be lost.

I use a 500GB WD My Book HD with my laptop. All of my source video is on the My Book and I had the same problem when performing a long render. However, I started rendering long renders to the HD on the laptop and I've not had any problems since. Once the render is complete I just move the file back over to the external HD if I need the space on the laptop.

I'm almost sure that I've picked up externals that were NTFS, but perhaps I'm just a fool, anyway just thought I'd try to make people fully aware and help them out if I can

so format those drives people

> I'm almost sure that I've picked up externals that were NTFS <

I have some external USB 2.0 drives I got at Costco that are NTFS. They're 320 GB, cost $100 each, and are called SimpleDrive by SimpleTech. I've had two of them for several months now, and both have been flawless.

--Ethan

Formatting the drive for FAT32 allows them to be read (immediately) by Mac and Linux systems.

I looked at this to share large files. If this is the same unit it connects to your LAN
(so can be accessed anytime over your cable modem/DSL/T1 link.)
my concern is can you make sure it is read only?

And my 500GB one just bit the dust two days ago, six months old. Second copies of 6500 mp3s and numerous mp4s. Also contained my 3rd backup of main data. At least I have a 3 or 5 year warranty on it.

I can't believe the POS drives I've had lately. I would never be without 3 live copies of my data at the ready. At the point I think it is bad power to my home, I remember that I am still running 5+ year old drives in some of my machines with no problems.

Bought my first newer Seagate with a 5 year warranty. We'll see how that works out.

Frustrating!

I picked up a couple of 280GB Mybooks a couple of years ago. Lost the time, money and brain cells needed to figure why they'd hang up and give me a "delayed write failure" message when I tried copying anything of any size onto them. I finally learned about the FAT32 problem (I think I got the info here on the Vegas forum).

they now both say they're NTFS, but I still get delayed write problems occasionally, and I 've ended up just using them for general backup, but I keep fearing they're unstable and are just waiting to stiff me again soon.

I won't buy one again.

Anyone using the Seagate Free Agent Pro hard drives? My MyBook has always had hanging issues and I rarely use it - At the time, Seagate didn't have a comparable solution so I'm heavily leaning toward them now - 750 Gig'er for $199 at Costco.

As for the FAT32 issue, just a habit but I format every drive I get, on the ones like the MyBook, it get's rid of the horrible back up software that most of them have.

-cheno

One source of delayed write failure are firewire drives with the prolific chipset (practically all of them; if it's Bytecc, only the models that end in f might have the oxford chipset).

Older versions of the firmware will have that problem, and eventually the MBR (something like that) gets toasted and you have to use a data recovery tool like Active Undelete.

Not fun.

2- With new-ish firmware, my drive still has problems playing nicely with other firewire devices on the same firewire card/bus. The USB aspect works fine.

Ethan:

What Costco store do you go to? the Costco website advertizes them, but for 200 bucks ($199) a pop.

that's amazing. i've noticed connecting it to usb works more stable than firewire too. i just keep it firewire because of speed. i'm switchin' it to usb from now on.

thanks Glenn.

Anyone using the Seagate Free Agent Pro hard drives?The one I have (320gig) is very fast connected via USB, it also has the new eSATA interface. Nice Seagate drive & very quiet. If I remember correctly it was already formatted as NTFS.

I bought and then returned 3 different drive enclosures until I read that the Prolific chipset is junk when it comes to firewire. I don't think NewEgg likes me much any more.

One of the improvements mentioned for the latest release of Ubuntu is the ability to work with NTFS. Mac's new Leopard still won't write to it, but it can read NTFS.

I wonder how ubuntu deals with Vista's NTFS security/file settings & database.
I'd be careful writing to an OS drive. Knoppix can also read/write ntfs partitions.
Reiserfs has much better crash protection & recovery.

I buy drives and cases and put them together myself. I like the 3 or 5 year warranty on my drives. The cases maybe not as nice, but the speed is the same.

Just curious, but what are the reasons that people are buying the external firewire and usb drives with the shorter warranties?