[ronfitch]

I am looking for a good solution for cross-platform storage/backup and know nothing about networking.
This is for home, where my wife uses an XP laptop, I use a MacBook Pro and have an 802.11g wireless router.
Initially, I considered a Firewire/USB 2.0 external hard drive with an NTFS partition for her files and a larger HFS plus partition for my files, which include video files that exceed the four gig limit that the FAT32 file format imposes.
Is there a good, simple network solution?
Thanks,
Ron

[FranksterOne]

Great article on Macs and NTFS
I would consider an NTFS drive with one partition and a few different folders for various needs.
Keep in mind there are a few characters that are a nono with NTFS. Off the top of my head these characters cannot be used with NTFS:
? " / < > * | :
Because of this avoid backing up system related files and caches because they contain these characters.
Have fun!!!

[nthmost]

I'm sorry, NTFS? I can't let that stand. :)

I just wrote a post blog about the trials and tribulations of using three different operating systems and needing to access portable drives from all of them:

http://venixflytrap....atform-storage/

I'll just cut to the chase -- the best solution for cross-platform storage format for a hard drive, these days, is ext3. It's supported natively by Macs ever since OS X became the standard. For Windows, grab a piece of free software called EXT3 IFS and that's all you need.

You could also go the route of buying a networked hard drive , but IMHO these things are overpriced and not as convenient as a simple external USB hard drive

--Naomi