# Mac connect to a network drive?



## nataku (Oct 25, 2005)

im planning to buy a Maxtor Shared Storage drive for my home. i was wondering if it will work. it will be connected to my powerbook g4 and the pc's of my family will connect there to get photos, music, etc. just 1 question... will it work on my mac? thanks guys and gals.


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## riddle (Nov 24, 2007)

I'm sure the original poster long since made his or her decision, but for the benefit of Googlers:

I just learned the hard way about the limitations of the Maxtor Shared Storage II: it uses a FAT32 filesystem, which means that it has Windows-style restrictions on filename length and character set. Among other things that means that it won't support a normal iTunes library (when I tried to load mine up, maybe 5% of the songs had filenames which were too long for it).

To add insult to injury, when Seagate bought Maxtor they shut down the maxtor.com site that the software links to for documentation -- so you'll be trying to figure out its confusing interface without a manual.

I'm still researching a Mac-friendly NAS solution. Here's one recent summary on the subject: http://www.bad-seed.org/dwelling/200...-and-mac-os-x/

Price aside, an Airport Extreme Base Station sounds like it should at least solve the filename issue.

Anybody have any other solutions to offer?


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