Howto Setup External Drive as a Networked Drive

Question

I've got an external 1.5TB drive I'd like to connect to my iMac and use as a networked drive so other computers can connect to it's IP and read/write to the Drive. What would be the best way to do this?

Specifics I'm looking for:

1. What format? (I'm thinking NTSF)
2. What software? (FUSE or something else?)
3. How would you set it up using that software for a quick and easy install?

Answer 1

My suggestion would be to format the drive to the default Mac OS X filesystem, HFS+ journaled. Then share the drive over SMB:

1. Open System Preferences
2. Go into Sharing
3. Check the box beside "File Sharing"
4. Under "Shared Folders", click the + icon and select the drive you want to share
5. Click the "Options..." button
6. Check the box beside "Share files and folders using SMB (Windows)"
7. Check the box beside the user accounts you want to have access to the drive
8. Click Done

Once this is done, all you have to do is to configure Samba on your Linux machine to connect to the shared drive.

You could also share over AFP instead and use netatalk on your Linux machine, but I've found that Samba is better supported.