Mac users! Where are you?

[rikytik]

Hi Wase,

When you say two external HD's networked, what do you mean? Are these NTFS HDs? Networked how?

I took a trip downtown to the Apple Store and quizzed a guy about this and he confirms that if you hook an NTFS HD to a Mac directly, you can read it, but not write to it. However if the HD is on a server, a PC for example, you can read and write from the Mac.

I have a D-Link DNS 323 Server. Little box that holds two SATA HD's, run by Linux firmware. Ethernet wired to the router. Trouble is you have to format the HD's in Linux first. It has a primitive ftp program in the firmware. It's good for that or as a server for a Multimedia Player.

I found a driver for Mac that claims to enable writing to NTFS: Paragon NTFS4Mac 6.5, but I'm not ready to venture there yet.

Thanks for the tips on Chronosync and VisualHub, both of which are installed. I downloaded OnyX, but haven't checked it out yet.

This thread is turning into a FAQ. Wase, you helped me get off the ground on my adventure to discover Apple, the forbidden fruit! . I sure appreciate the time you gave me. So far, this baby is stable as a rock and I can't believe I'm doing this all on a little teeny weeny Mac Mini with a WD Studio Book, hanging off the side for Time Machine. I'm having a ball!

[wase4711]

Well, they are what you call NAS,(Network attached Storage) devices; basically, external hard drives with an ethernet port to connect to your router..that way, anyone who has access to your network can also access the files..and yes, they were originally formatted as NTFS hard drives, so that has not changed...I can read the files, write to those drives, and they were INSTANTLY recognized when I hooked up the new Mac machines!

Apple is no longer a "forbidden" fruit; I bet if 20 of our "buddies" here tried a Mac machine for more than a day or 2, 18 of them would switch immediately..
You gotta love the fact that there are NO MORE BLUE SCREENS, REGISTRY PROBLEMS, and REBOOTS!

I swear, I just reboot this thing every 10 days or so, just because I think I should...

Glad to help you out; there are lots of great resources out there, so, the more you read about these things, the more amazing stuff you find out you can do!