NTFS vs HFS+

[Klutch9]

Just bought a new iMac the other day, first Mac computer I've owned. My question revolves around file system differences... I have an external HDD formatted to NTFS, with around 328GB of pictures on it. All of the pictures were copied to the iMac's HDD (using HFS+, from what I've researched). All folders and files copied successfully, but take up a lot more room on the iMac... around 353GB. I'm assuming this comes down to different file system efficiencies? I tried Googling the answer to this but didn't come up with anything concrete. I've also read that Mac's occasionally give misleading document size info when asked for real-time (IE highlighting all the files in question and requesting info).

Additionally, the hard drive itself, when plugged into my pc, reads as 328GB, whereas when plugged into the Mac, that same drive shows up as 353GB. So both the drive and the imported files on the Mac match as far as space used, but differ from how windows sizes those same files.

 

[javacontour]

I believe NTFS uses a smaller Logical Block Size, but I could be thinking of HFS instead of HFS+

I do believe HFS has a fair bit more meta information stored regarding a file, so if you have a great deal of small files, you may be using up more space on HFS+ vs NTFS just for this meta-information

 

[bunnspecial]

I can't answer directly, but usually macOS won't read NTSF directly without add on drivers and it's possible that they're not reporting correctly.

Also, if it truly is a new Mac, it should be formatted APFS and not HFS+. As of Mojave or so, the computer will do format in place from HFS+ to APFS if you upgrade, and anything now should ship with APFS. The ability to read/write HFS+ should stick around for a while(HFS+ came out in ~1997 with OS 8.1, OS X Tiger could read/write HFS standard and even current OSs can still read HFS standard).

 

[Klutch9]

Originally Posted by bunnspecial
I can't answer directly, but usually macOS won't read NTSF directly without add on drivers and it's possible that they're not reporting correctly.

Also, if it truly is a new Mac, it should be formatted APFS and not HFS+. As of Mojave or so, the computer will do format in place from HFS+ to APFS if you upgrade, and anything now should ship with APFS. The ability to read/write HFS+ should stick around for a while(HFS+ came out in ~1997 with OS 8.1, OS X Tiger could read/write HFS standard and even current OSs can still read HFS standard).


Mac OS can read NTFS natively, but not write/modify. I have the Seagate Paragon NTFS software for my external HDD, so I can now write to my NTFS drive seamlessly.

 

[Klutch9]

Originally Posted by javacontour
I believe NTFS uses a smaller Logical Block Size, but I could be thinking of HFS instead of HFS+

I do believe HFS has a fair bit more meta information stored regarding a file, so if you have a great deal of small files, you may be using up more space on HFS+ vs NTFS just for this meta-information


I've read this too. All of the files are pictures of varying resolutions and sizes, so I'm not sure how small they are.

 

[Rand]

is one reporting in GB and the other in billions of bytes?

328x1024x1024x1024=352,187,318,272

 

[JustinH]

does the drive have a hidden recovery partition?

 

[Klutch9]

Originally Posted by Rand
is one reporting in GB and the other in billions of bytes?

328x1024x1024x1024=352,187,318,272


Yep, just figured that out myself too

problem solved!