Mac mini M2 - External Hard Drives Are Read Only. Won't Write.

[Anton]

Hello everyone,

I bought a new Mac recently (see screen shots below for specs), and since I started using it I can not write (save) the xmp files to my external hard drives, when editing in ACR and Photoshop. The drives are read only, even though "Sharing & Permissions" is set to read and write. I used them just fine on my older Mac Book Pro Mid 2014.

They are formatted to NTFS, which seems silly to me now. 

Can I save myself, from having to reformat them?

How did they work on my older Mac, even though formatted to NTFS, but they won't work on my new Mac?

 

Thanks for the help,

 

Anton.

 

[Brian]

13 hours ago, Anton said:

They are formatted to NTFS, which seems silly to me now. 

THIS IS VERY BAD-BAD-BAD!!!!

The reason you can not write to them, is because the Partition Type is NTFS. By default, a Mac OS will READ a NTFS Drive, but NOT WRITE TO IT. The reason is simple, as Apple wants to make things as easy as possible for you to switch over to a Mac and ditch Windows. By not enabling the ability of writing to the NTFS drive, cuts down on the liability that Apple has if your files get screwed up during the write-process. This in turn, cuts down on Tech Support Calls; let's face it, it's Apple, they want you to ditch Windows, no going back-and-forth between the two worlds.

13 hours ago, Anton said:

How did they work on my older Mac, even though formatted to NTFS, but they won't work on my new Mac?

You probably have Translation Software which acts as an interpreter between Windows (NTFS) and Mac (Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Even though this software is a work-around, you really-really-really want to pick a format, Macintosh OR Windows. I do not recommend those Translation Software Packages long term. In a pinch, they are fine, but sooner or later, your Data can get corrupted.  Yes, even though you have been "fine" on your 2014 laptop. That's like saying you've never gotten a speeding ticket, even though you routinely drive 20MPH over the Speed Limit on a normal basis.  

13 hours ago, Anton said:

Can I save myself, from having to reformat them?

Good News and Bad News. First the Good News...

Hard Drives do not care what Partition Type they are. They will do as they are told by the OS, and no special software is needed. All you need is built into the Mac OS. So you can fix this issue without too many problems, but that's where the Bad News comes into play...

In order to convert the drive from NTFS to Mac OS Extended (Journaled), which is what you want to be on, you will need to copy EVERYTHING off of that NTFS External Drive and put it somewhere else temporarily. Then we Nuke the NTFS External HD, create the correct Partition Type / Format it, then copy things back. It looks like you have a little over 2TB of files on that drive, so we would need another 3TB at the least, or another 4TB Drive. (recommended.) Or two external 2TB Drives. Whatever you have laying around that has enough storage for your files.

Let me know when you have another drive to house your files on this NTFS files and I can give you instructions on what to do.

 

[Anton]

Ok. Understood. Thank you for the explanation. 

 

I've actually been thinking about upgrading to better data management, like a NASA system. I'm totally clueless when it comes to names, specs, and brands. Could you recommend a system that would work well for me, based on me shooting approximately 2700 images per week (all to be deleted at the end of each month), and the fact that I already have 12 TBs of data (which won't be deleted), that needs transferring, which is already on my current external and internal hard drives, combined.

[Brian]

A NAS is something that I also will be going to in the near future. In order to obtain two primary things, Data Capacity and Redundancy, you are going to pay for it. 

So if you are looking for just storage, it’s cheaper to buy a 20TB Thunderbolt EHD than spending $3000 or more on a NAS Setup. Large Hard Drives aren’t cheap and if you go with any type of redundancy, there is overhead in where you lose space. For example, you might see a NAS that you see advertised as 12TB, but that’s in a RAID 0 setup. If you want mirroring, which is the configuration that if one HD fails, you have the other to get your files from, the Capacity drops in half. In this example RAID 1 is two 6TB Drives that are Mirrored. If you want spanning across multiple drives and want speed? That’s RAID 5 and you need at least three identical HDs. If you want Mirroring AND speed, that’s four HDs in a RAID 10. At a few hundred for each drive, plus the NAS enclosure, costs add up pretty quickly.  

So, do you have at least $3000 to spend? Not saying you will spend that much but buying multiple 20TB HDs that are meant to be in a RAID could easily cost around $1600, if you went with four drives, plus the cost of the NAS. 

So what’s your budget? 

To answer your question, I’d investigate the Synology Line of NAS units, either the Synology 4-Bay DiskStation DS923+ or the larger Synology 5-bay DiskStation DS1522+ AND budget for a APC UPS Uninterruptible Power Supply, I like APC.) You need to treat a NAS like a Mini Server and not a glorified External Hard Drive.

As to which one? There is $100 difference between the two and you get one more slot, 5 vs 4. What this can do is enable you to do different things or give you more redundancy. Like which things? You can use the NAS to host Virtual Machines or have different storage pools, or have a Plex Media Server hosting files on one drive/pool and your images and other documents on another set of drives/pool. There is SO much you can do with a NAS, they just aren't meant for storage mediums.

[Brian]

Here is an excellent tool in figuring out how much data you need and how much overhead each RAID setup creates:

Synology RAID Calculator

Here is an excellent article on the differences between SHR and a RAID Setup and is worth a read.

Now if you are thinking about mixing hard drives and growing your storage pool overtime, keep in mind this setup will favor the capacity of the lowest HD and you'd have to use at least SHR for the storage method. Play with the Calculator Tool and mix / match drives. For me that's used to a Server Environment and RAID Systems, I'm only going to match my Hard Drives, no if's-ands-or-buts. I'm personally going to buy either 3 or 4 identical drives, such as this one. Keep in mind, these are 3 or 4 beefy hard drives meant to be in a NAS. They aren't your typical hard drives. They are also traditional spinning hard drives and will be in an plastic enclosure, so they are going to be loud. This is one of the main reasons I haven't pulled the plug and bought a Synology NAS and am thinking about putting together one myself, using FreeNAS or a similar OS.

That said, I'm still researching things myself. I can say this, if you do go your "Build your own NAS" Route, I'd highly recommend getting a Motherboard and RAM that is ECC based. (Error Correcting Code). This type of RAM detects mistakes so you have a less of a chance of data being corrupted in memory while it's being written to the drives. We also haven't even talked out cache drives either. See how all this stuff adds up quickly? It's only money, right?  

[Anton]

Cheers Brian, there is a lot for me to digest here. I'll go away and consider your points carefully. In the meantime, I think buying a new EHD so I can reformat my current ones, is the best option.

If I'm to spend a decent amount of money on a data back up system, then I'd like to be confident I've spend my money wisely and future proofed the investment.

Thanks 🙂

 

 

[Brian]

The first step before doing anything, is getting ANY HD that is NTFS Formatted converted over to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) This will fix your speed issues and give you a stable platform to work off of or give you the best chance to copy stuff over to a new NAS setup. 

Let me know if you need instructions on how to change things. It’s pretty easy to do. 

[Anton]

I'm trying to delete files from the hard drive (ones that I don't need), but I can't delete them. Could you shed some light as to why?

Thanks 

[Anton]

I figured this one out