bobwalder

My point it they all work up to the point they don't.... and they will all work again eventually. But that is of little use if you are stuck with no access to your data.

As an IT professional and security guy of over 35 years I am of the KISS school of thought.... unless you NEED NTFS, then format with ExFAT

Or not... that is just MY personal 0.02....

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Yeah, that next MacOS update will be a complete revamp of the file system. It's about time...

blackest Loc: Ireland

I guess you should be familiar with many file systems e.g ext2 , 3 , 4 xfs ReiserFs zfs and others each tend to have different strengths and weaknesses e.g XFS is good for fast disk access ext3 and 4 are journaled so if there are problems the journal can be replayed. I guess you would know why reiserfs is currently unsupported ...

As a journalled filesystem NTFS is much more robust than exFAT exfat has advantages for solid state drives less writes and less wear but fud for a well established mainstream file system such as NTFS seems remarkable. Personally I would just use hfs+ if it's primarily going to be used with a mac and just use a network share for PC use. File system protocols are widely understood you should know this. We pretty much should have similar experience but i have a feeling i've more familiarity with cross platform issues.

If your an original BOFH then i salute you

bobwalder

Well I find much of that a little condescending but will let it pass - this is why I tend not to post on forums.... There is no way I wanted to get into deep explanations of different file systems as part of a post on a photography forum. My point when dealing with laymen is always KISS....

When we are discussing external storage to allow you to get pics off a memory card while on a trip without having to lug around a computer then lowest common denominator is key. Journaled filesystems are all well and good providing they are supported. You are dealing with cobbled-together storage systems that are cross platform in more than just the Mac/PC world - weird little Chinese widgets and phones are suddenly part of the ecosystem. I found a solution that worked well and just wanted to post my experience of that... If you are happy lugging around high-end laptops with external RAID storage on your vacations then more power to ya....

nikonbrain Loc: Crystal River Florida

I told you guys I use it every day constantly changing between platform's all the files on the drive can be seen by both platforms I work the files on the Mac and print from the PC I have CS6 on both computers, each have different plugins installed and one is 32 bit one is 64 bit , hence the reason for using both. My old stable of plugins won't work in 64 bit architecture... Hence the need for the drive.. I have a Lacie drive that is formated for the Mac and the PC won't recognize it . I have since moved all files to the Seagate ...with no problem with access on both platform's ....just saying it does work if you follow the instructions provided...

blackest Loc: Ireland

Try this

https://www.paragon-software.com/home/hfs-windows/

There is literally a trial so nothing to lose gives hfs+ support to windows and if its useful to you the full version is $20. They have others too even one for virtual hard drives. One of macs has windows and linux partitions it can boot (it's limited to 3GB of RAM so running a VM is limited to about 1.5 GB for a guest) so with ntfs and ext drivers I can access all the partitions from all the operating systems. That was a little tricky to do because Windows doesn't like more than 4 partitions on a drive so I had to ensure windows and linux just use a single partition each.

sandiegosteve Loc: San Diego, CA

I just found this page and it seems applicable.

http://asktimgrey.com/2017/05/17/catalog-on-two-computers/

farwest Loc: Utah

So I got my new external drive formatted it in ExFAT now the question is I want to copy my photo's files and lightroom catalog to the external hard drive how or what is the best way to do that?

sandiegosteve Loc: San Diego, CA

The blanket recommendation is to do that from LR. But, you can't move an open catalog that I know of.

I would:
1) Make a backup of everything (preferable on a separate external drive)
2) Create some folders on the new drive. lr-catalog and images for example.
3) Copy the lrcat file to the new drive into the folder
4) Open LR by double clicking the lrcat file on the external drive.
5) In the "folders" panel of the Library module, click the "+" - Add Folder. Chose the external drive and the new folder you created on it for your images.
6) Drag and drop the files from within LR to the new folder.


If you move them outside of LR, it will freak out that they are missing. There is a "find" dialog you can use, but this would be easier.

Now, I'd say wait for others to confirm this. And remember your backsups.