FAT 32

Cluster counts held in a 32-bit field, of which 28 bits are currently used.

In theory, this should support a total of approximately 268,435,456 (2 28 ) clusters, allowing for drive sizes in the range of 8 terabytes with 32K clusters, but the boot sector uses a 32 bit field to limit volume size to 2 32 sectors (2TB on a hard disk with 512 byte sectors)

The maximum possible size for a file on a FAT32 volume is 4 GB

NTFS

Standard file system of Windows NT, including its later versions Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Vista.

NTFS replaced Microsoft's previous FAT file system, used in MS-DOS and early versions of Windows. NTFS has several improvements over FAT and HPFS (High Performance File System) such as improved support for metadata and the use of advanced data structures to improve performance, reliability, and disk space utilization plus additional extensions such as security access control lists and file system journaling.

Drive Info

The external drive comes preformatted with one large FAT32 partition. Windows 98SE and later should not have a problem accessing this partition.

Macintosh Operating System 10.3.x or earlier will only recognize FAT32 partitions that are smaller than 128-gigabytes. Multiple FAT32 partitions smaller than 128-gigabytes will need to be created in order for Macintosh Operating Systems 10.3.x or earlier to recognize the partitions. You will need to use a Windows based computer to create FAT32 partitions, as Macintosh does not have the ability to create them.

Macintosh Operating System 10.4.x or later can recognize FAT32 partitions over 128-gigabytes.

If you will be using multiple partitions, create the partitions while the drive is connected to the PC. If you are planning to transfer files larger than 4GB to the drive, there will be a 4GB file size limit on both the PC and Mac if the partition is FAT 32. This is a file system limitation and there is no way around it.

If you use a PC running Windows 2000 or XP to partition and format the external drive, keep in mind that both of those versions of Windows can only create FAT32 partitions that are 32-gigabytes or smaller. This is an operating system limitation. To delete the existing FAT32 partition on the drive and create multiple, smaller FAT32 partitions, use Disk Management in Windows 2000 or XP

Q: Will I be able to use the power from the USB port or will I need to have the power adapter for the external hard drive to work?
A: No you will need to use the power adapter that comes with the hard drive for it to receive power and work.

Q: I have the Drive Plugged in to my computer but WHY does my computer not recognize it.
A: Make sure that the drive has been initialized and formatted. If the drive has not been formatted you will need to format it before your computer will recognize it. You should be able to use the settings in your control panel under computer management to do this.

Q: I seem to have lost my driver for the backup software. Where can I get the driver from?
A: If you go to our download menu on voxproducts.com there is a section that says drivers and software which will allow you to download this.

Q: Will I be able to use this hard drive as a stand alone unit and run an operating system on it to make it a bootable drive?
A: No this drive will have to be used for extra storage, to back up files or as a secondary hard drive.

Q: Will I be able to use this drive on both A PC and a MAC?
A: Yes. You will have to have an open USB port or an ESATA connection available and the hard drive will need to be formatted using FAT32. If you are going to use it on both PC and a MAC it is better to Format it using the PC. Formatting with a MAC for a PC can sometimes cause problems.

Q: What is the type of format that is used on the Drive and will I be able to change it.
A: The standard formatting method that is used is NTFS. If you do need to change it to a different format you will need to format the hard drive again from the computer management settings in your control panel choosing the format that is best for you. Make sure you have no data on the drive that you want to keep because once you format it again everything will be lost.

Q: When using the hard drive on my MAC I can only transfer a max of 4GB of information how can I transfer more?
A: If this has been formatted using FAT32 unfortunately the max you can transfer will be 4GB of information at a time. The only way to transfer more information would be to use NTFS format. By using that format with your MAC the information on the hard drive can only be used as read only.