i want to format an external drive that will be primarily used on a mac
go with fat32?

 

yes

 

yes

 

so if i want to throw on there a file > 4gb he's screwed?

 

if you're not going to use it in windows, you can format it with the mac filesystem (HFS+ or whatever).

or you can use NTFS, but the mac can only read to a disk that's NTFS unless you install a separate driver or whatever it's called. i think i used MacFUSE at home.

 

is this macfuse pretty stable?

 

i haven't had a problem, but honestly, i haven't used it that much. i've only connected an NTFS drive to my mac once, and i was able to use it like a regular drive (with macfuse installed). but i haven't even used my mac since really.