[turbulentfurball]

I've recently bought an external firewire enclosure for use with the HD from my old PC (3.5" 60GB ATA 7200RPM) and I'm not sure exactly how I should use it.

I see three options:

• Format as FAT32 for backups, and the possibility for using it to transfer files to/from a Windows PC
• Format as Mac and use for backups
• Use to boot OS X

I have a G4 Mini with the 'silent upgrade', so I have a 5400RPM HD, so I'm not sure if the speed difference will be very significant.

A similar topic is discussed in this thread, but it was before 5400RPM hard drives were used in the Mini.

Any opinions?


Also, please excuse the glaring grammatical error in the thread's title. I typed as I spoke on the phone!

[Ebby]

I use FAT32 for external drives just in case you ned to transfer files with a friend. I boot off internal drives only, and backups work pretty well in FAT32 format as long as your files are less than 4GB.

[naashraf]

Originally Posted by Ebby and backups work pretty well in FAT32 format as long as your files are less than 4GB.

So if a file is over 4GB and you back it up to a FAT32 format HD so will it eventually give problems?

[Ebby]

No. There is a 4GB filesize limit. Larger files just won't copy. You can get around that by braking up a disk image into segments. There are some utilities out there that can do that if you search.

[julesstoop]

Originally Posted by turbulentfurball I have a G4 Mini with the 'silent upgrade', so I have a 5400RPM HD, so I'm not sure if the speed difference will be very significant.

Any (fairly modern) 3,5" drive will be much faster than a 2,5" drive. Even if the laptop drive were to be a 7200 rpm drive, a 5400 rpm desktop drive is usually faster.