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[StFeder]

I'd like to save all my media files to an external HD, which is easy to do using my PC. But I'm an absolute newbie at a mac. So I'm wondering (and have no idea where to start searching): is it possible to use the external HD for PC and Mac?

I'm a big microsoft fan but the dancing school I'm currently working at only uses Mac. Setting up MC and importing my windows library there was a surprising easy task. I exported a part of my audio files and it was easy to update the database to point to that given location.

But what I would like to do in future is: have an external HD where all my media files are stored at. The external HD also will be used for automatic MC library backups, so it always contains (more or less) current library backup and all media files. At dancing school I'd like to plug in the HD, import the database (especially because of smart- and playlists) and get started without having to update the file locations every time.

Any Ideas (please remember: I'm a newbie to mac and was happy to figure out that "finder" is some kind of "explorer"...)? Or an impossible challenge?

[Zsolt Andrasy]

I use a WD “My Book” 5TB HDD which was formatted originally for Windows. I reformatted it to ExFAT by a Windows PC  and it works perfect since years. By this ExFAT format I lost a few hundred MB, but I am OK with this.
It is compatible now with Windows and Mac, too.
But unfortunatelly it will be full, soon.
:-(

Regards,

Zsolt

[StFeder]

Will windows and mac share the same file paths? I guess if I switch the HD and restore the library to the other platform I still would have to update the file location because windows stores other paths than macOS does, right?

[Zsolt Andrasy]

Theoretically yes, but I have JRiver only on my Mac, so I cannot answer more detail to you. One thing is sure: I play the file from HD with my MacBook Pro, but I copy the files to the HD from my Windows PC at my workplace. Because at my workplace we have very fast net, till at home very slow…