USB 2.0 External Drive very slow!

[s.macneill]

Hey gang. I've got a comstar 250GB external drive. I swap this between my mac and my pc. When i plug the drive into my mac, osx picks it up no problem, but when i try to write to it, it's very very slow. Even reading from it is awful. If i try to copy a 700MB video file to it, it'll be trying to start the transfer for a long time (15 - 20 min or more). I plug the drive into the PC, and she picks up very best, and performs good. I've tried different USB ports, all the same. Any suggestions?
-S

 

[Jamie411]

I think I can help.
Your external hard-drive sounds like it is formatted for MS-DOS or a PC computer. This makes the information manipulation process "In Lay Terms" easier for your PC and harder for MAC.

Fear Not.

You can change this with Disk Utility.
1.)Backup your info to either computer.

2.)Open your Finder and navigate too Disk Utility which can be found in your Applications Folder under the sub-folder Utilities.

3.)Make sure at this point your external HD is plugged in. Open DISK UTILITY. Highlight your external drive in the left hand menu.

4.) Now in the top bar menu you will see the PARTITION button. Hit this, and you can choose how many partitions you would like and what to name them, along with how big you want. Choose what is best for you.

5.) The optimal format for your mac is MAC OS EXTENDED JOURNALED, and MS-DOS for your PC. Choose two partitions, and create one for your MAC with the Extended Format and one for your PC with the MS-DOS format. Let the program run its course. This should solve your problems.

6.)Should Look Like This.

 

[s.macneill]

Excellent, i'll give this a shot tonight. Thanks!