Hard drive for pc and mac sessions?

[Benasp]

Hi!
First, ,sorry for my english...
I work more and more with pc and mac and I want to know if it's possible to use the same external hard drive whith all sessions in. On pc, I think the hard drive must be in NTFS for PT...Is it possible to read and record on this hard drive on pc and mac?
I'm not sure to be clear...
Thanks for your help!

Ben

[JChance]

The drive needs to be formatted with the Mac (HFS + Extended/journaled.)

Then you install MacDrive 7 from Media Four on the PC. It allows the Windows computer to read and write to the Mac-formatted drive.

I have both platforms at home, and use MacDrive myself. Works perfectly every time.

[GunnyT]

FW drive requirements on Mac systems


FW drive requirements on Windows Systems


FireWire Drive Formatting
Drives should be formatted with Windows XP disk administration without Dynamic Disk selected
NTFS or FAT32 file system for Windows XP
Windows XP is unable to create a FAT32 partition on a drive that is larger than 32 GB. If your drive is larger than 32 GB, either use a partitioning application such as PartitionMagic or use the NTFS file system.
Windows NTFS or FAT32 formatted drives supported on Mac OS X for transfer only
Please Note: FAT32 Volumes & Future Versions of Pro Tools for Windows
Pro Tools 7.3.x will be the last version of Pro Tools that will support FAT32 for Recording.
Future versions of Pro Tools for Windows XP and Windows Vista will not support FAT32 for recording, but will continue to support FAT32 formatted volumes for Playback and Transfer.

Mac HFS+ Disk Support Option
Pro Tools 7.3 and higher only

The Mac HFS+ Disk Support option lets you interchange sessions between Mac-based and Windows-based Pro Tools systems using local HFS+ (Mac OS Extended) formatted hard drives.

With the Mac HFS+ Disk Support option installed on a Windows computer, you can mount an HFS+ drive on a Windows-based Pro Tools system, and record and play back Pro Tools sessions directly on that drive as if it were natively formatted (for example, NTFS or FAT32) for Windows.
A Digidesign-qualified Pro Tools|HD® system or Pro Tools LE™ system running Pro Tools 7.3 or higher on a Windows computer
A qualified hard drive formatted on a Mac computer as HFS+ (Mac OS X Extended)
For more information, including installation instructions and session compatbility, see the Mac HFS+ Disk Support Guide (available for download below).

For systems lower than Pro Tools 7.3, Mac HFS+ formatted drives are supported on Windows XP for transfer only by using MacDrive 6 software by Mediafour (purchased separately).

[basslik]

what are the advantages of doing that?
i'm new to mac and just getting my feet wet, so switching a session over to PC after doing it on a mac?

[GunnyT]

I wouldn't say it's an advantage. Personal feelings about the other OS aside, there are some of us that use one system at home, while using another system at work (i.e. I have Macs at home, and use PCs at work). Or maybe a friend is using a different system than you are.

[basslik]

thanks gunnyT
makes sense to me. since my guitar player running pro tools on a PC. maybe i should setup my mac that way too. got a new firewire drive ready to format to my Imac 1.83 intel duo, so if i may ask, what should i do at this point?
and would i need to buy a software to be able to trasfer sessions to PC?

[shoemakesmusic]

pro tools 7.4 xp asks if you want to be able to read hfs+ so just say yes and then u can switch back and forth all day.

[GunnyT]

As a side note, basslik, if you have no desire (or need) to carry your ext HD all over, you could just put whatever song (or songs) you are working on, on a thumb drive (they are up to 32 GB), and just transfer (not write to or read from) the files to your friends PC.

My friend and I transfer files all the time (even using iDisk as a .mac member). He has XP (M-Powered) and I have OS X (LE). Transfer is seamless. You'll get a msg saying that the i/o has changed (he has a project mix, I have a 003 and Mbox 2 Pro), but that's nothing to be concerned about.

Just another thing I enjoy about PT.

[JChance]

Ya know, I've read that 7.4 has this option several times on this forum.
BUT, when I installed it on my wife's Vista desktop, I never saw this option.
I even re-downloaded it from Digi just to see if I could find the step that I missed, but still didn't see it.

I'm using M-Powered. Wondering if this might be one of the subtle differences between M-Powered and LE. Is LE the only one of the two with the HFS+ option?

Either way, like I said earlier, I use MacDrive 7 when I need to use the Windows computer, and it works great.

But now I'm wishing that maybe I shouldn't have bought MacDrive if I could have just used the HFS+ option!

As to the the original poster, the above suggestion about using a jump or thumb-drive is a good option as well.

And of course if your session is no larger than 4.7 gigs, you can always just stick it on a DVD.

FTP file sharing is cheap, too. I got a ton of storage for like $85 a year from www.siteground.com.

But for strictly sharing the same drive between Macs and PC's, then the HFS+ option in 7.4 (if it truly exists, ha ha!) or MacDrive will be your safest bet.