Posted by Julia Flanagan on December 26, 2012 at 4:31 PM
I am considering a switch from PC (mine just died) to Mac and one big question is how much of a pain will it be to get my 10,000 + images located on a compatible external hard drive to cross over to the Mac with Lightroom? I currently have Lr2 and will upgrade to Lr4.
Any experienced answers out there?
Thanks!
Posted by Wayne Shakell on December 27, 2012 at 3:11 AM
Julia, There are many portable hard drives out there are compatible with both platforms.
Seek one of these out and load your images.
Once done take the portable drive to a apple shop or a friends who runs a Mac to try it out.
Assurance.
Wayne Shakell Wales, United Kingdom.
Posted by Dottie Short on December 27, 2012 at 8:33 AM
When I switched about seven years ago I bought a book titled, "Switching to the Mac". I recall that one of their options was to use a software program that cost about $10 that allowed me to make the change easily.
Posted by David Bostedo on December 27, 2012 at 10:46 AM
If your computer died, where do you have your pics now? That might affect the best way to go about transferring them.
All hard drives are compatible with both PC and Mac - they use the same drives... however not all hard drive formats are.
Most drives come formatted as NTFS, which is the default Windows file type. Macs use HPS+. And neither one can fully use the other. (Macs can read, but not write, NTFS drives; Otherwise they're incompatible.)
In order to use the drive most easily on both PC and Mac, you need to format it as either FAT32, or exFAT. In Windows, you can simply right click the drive in Windows explorer and select "Format". If you want to format on the Mac instead, I think you need to bring up the drive manager, and select "Erase" (not sure about that though).
I'd suggest using exFAT if available, since it should handle all drives. FAT32 may not work on large drives (1TB or larger) and might not be available depending on OS version.
Discussion
3 repliesAny experienced answers out there?
Thanks!
Seek one of these out and load your images.
Once done take the portable drive to a apple shop or a friends who runs a Mac to try it out.
Assurance.
Wayne Shakell Wales, United Kingdom.
All hard drives are compatible with both PC and Mac - they use the same drives... however not all hard drive formats are.
Most drives come formatted as NTFS, which is the default Windows file type. Macs use HPS+. And neither one can fully use the other. (Macs can read, but not write, NTFS drives; Otherwise they're incompatible.)
In order to use the drive most easily on both PC and Mac, you need to format it as either FAT32, or exFAT. In Windows, you can simply right click the drive in Windows explorer and select "Format". If you want to format on the Mac instead, I think you need to bring up the drive manager, and select "Erase" (not sure about that though).
I'd suggest using exFAT if available, since it should handle all drives. FAT32 may not work on large drives (1TB or larger) and might not be available depending on OS version.