External Hard Drive & Two Computers

I just got a G-Drive 500 GB to go with both my MBP and my wife's MBP. How do I set it up and use it for each computer?

 

well you can use it as is for both. after that, it all depends. if ur going to use it for only those two, then it comes down to partitions/formats. my reccomendation, is two journaled partitions. that way, it will be one drive, but when its plugged in, it will look like 2 drives, and you can each have your own space. the thing is, that journaled is a mac only format, so no windows comp could see it. if your going to use it on windows to, then you need to format it to FAT.

 

Well, if you don't mind sharing the hard drive, and just separating your files by folders, then just plug in the external hard drive to one of the MBPs and it should work right out of the box. Plug it into the other MBP and it should recognize without any issue as well.

And as stealthsniper96 noted, you may want to consider partitioning the external hard drive, so although it is physically one, it is "virtually" divided into two external hard drives, so you can each have your own "part" of the external hard drive.

If you know for sure you won't need to be able to access the files on the external on a Windows PC, then you can just partition for Mac OS Extended (Journaled). If you want to be able to access it on a Windows PC as well, then partition for FAT32 so both OSes can recognize it (FAT32 is MS-DOS).

Here's a great guide for partitioning your external hard drive in Mac OS X Leopard : http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/partitioning_tiger.html

 

Thank you Sam.

The guide was fantastic and it even had exact directions for the G-Drive. I have made the partitions and back upped the hard drive. Now AI will do my wife's MBP.

THANKS AGAIN.
BobT