How to Format Drives for P2 dowload & related questions

[Lenilenapi]

What are the pros & cons of various ways of formatting drives for P2 downloads. This would make a good sticky.
Here are my questions:

For Mac use only - I assume "Mac OS Extended"

but should it be journaled or non journaled ?
Is non journaled faster but jpournaled safer?
(Also this is the same same as Mac HFS+ or am I making this up?)

What about if you want the disk to be able to play on a PC as well?

The only other choice I see in Disk Utility ( OSX10.4.8) is "Unix File System"
Is that the same as MSDOS ? or Fat32?

What difference do these file systems make when downloading & transferring P2 files.?
Will they treat long files - over 8G or over 4G differently.
Will all drives show anything over 8G as "spanned" in the P2 Import window of FCP?

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Here's the background for this question.

I just was downloading P2 files for someone who brought their own disk which was formatted Fat 32. Mine was "MAC OS extended jounaled".

When we looked at them in the P2 import window of FCP 5.1.2 they treated the files from a 16Gig card differently.
To be honest I got confused over which was which as i was trying to figure it out.
I think though that in one case - the FAT 32 disk saw only 2 shots.
One of which said "spanned". The other disk ("MAC OS Extended") showed 4 separate shots.

In another case, both showed only 2 shots one of which was probably longer than 8G and that said "spanned" on both drives.

Will these drives always say "spanned" if you go over 8G's. Did the FAT 32 do it over 4 Gig's perhaps. (Maybe I have them backwards as well.

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Also I've been noticing recently that sometimes people hand me drives that are much slower downloading than I'm used to. I am always using a Powerbook to transfer Files.
The slow ones have seemed to be FAT32 and also sometimes are USB 2.0 - Will these parameters make a difference?

I have noticed that copying the contents file first speeds these slow drives up enormously. What's this about anyway?

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last questioon - on a powerbook does the USB 2.0 port share information with the Firewire ports as say the FW400 and FW800 share the same port?

Please help us not look stupid on the set.


- Lenny Levy

 

[David Saraceno]

Non or journaled is fine. It doesn't make a difference.

If you want the disc to be "seen" by a PC, FAT32 is the choice, or buy MacDrive 6 and install it on the PC. The PC will then see a Mac formatted drive.

To get to FAT32 in the Disc Utility, hold the "option" key down when accessing the drop format menus. You'll see the MS-DOS election.

To understand why the 16 GB card was seen different, google FAT32.

 

[Lenilenapi]

Thanks David,

Found MS DOS

Couple of questions more for anyone:

Is the only way to avoid a "spanned" message to keep your clips shorter?

Will a PC see the same message?

I understand you don't want "journaled" on if its a media disk for editing. Is this the only time it makes a difference?

Lenny

 

[David Saraceno]

Don't have a PC.

Not certain what you mean by avoiding spanned clips.

I have people who have journaled media drives and don't have issues. I don't journal them, but I don't think it matters. But keep them non if you wish.