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OmniX · Dec 27, 2004, 10:56 AM

greetings all - just wondering what the latest consensus is on the forum on whether OSX 10.4 / Tiger will have NTFS read AND write capabilities?

are there any indications one way or another in the latest dev builds?

tx,
ox

clarkgoble · Dec 27, 2004, 01:58 PM

I'd be very surprised if it does, given Microsoft's various patents. They'd pretty much have to liscence NTFS from Microsoft and I'm sure MS would charge an arm and a leg for it.

msuper69 · 07:33 AM

The real question is when will Microsoft start supporting Mac OS Extended?

PurpleGiant · Dec 27, 2004, 09:43 PM

Originally posted by clarkgoble:
I'd be very surprised if it does, given Microsoft's various patents. They'd pretty much have to liscence NTFS from Microsoft and I'm sure MS would charge an arm and a leg for it.

How then does Apple already have read access?

Question: What does Linux on x86 do with NTFS drives? Can it read them?

CatOne · Dec 27, 2004, 10:31 PM

Originally posted by msuper69:
The real question is when will Microsoft start supporting Mac OS Extended?

Why would they?

MacDrive 6. $50, problem COMPLETELY solved. It's a great product; I've used it for a few years, works perfectly.

juanvaldes · Dec 28, 2004, 12:16 AM

Originally posted by PurpleGiant:
How then does Apple already have read access?

Question: What does Linux on x86 do with NTFS drives? Can it read them?

Same way apple does. I have seen some experimental drivers for writing but still not very reliable it seems.

Sven G · Dec 28, 2004, 06:26 AM

... Some interesting links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS

http://linux-ntfs.sf.net

http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive

NTFS has many interesting characteristics (for example, NTFS compression), but one major flaw, as was noted previously: it's a proprietary file system!

msuper69 · Dec 28, 2004, 07:34 AM

Originally posted by CatOne:
Why would they?

MacDrive 6. $50, problem COMPLETELY solved. It's a great product; I've used it for a few years, works perfectly.

Please reread my post. I neglected to use an emoticon to indicate I was being facetious.

Angus_D · Dec 28, 2004, 08:08 AM

I doubt it. I was about to write something but then I realised wikipedia said it already:

Details on the implementation's internals are closed, so third-party vendors have a difficult time providing tools to handle NTFS. Currently, the Linux kernel includes a module which makes it possible to read NTFS partitions; however the general complexity of the filesystem and inadequate developer resources, both in time and persons, have delayed the addition of full write support.

P · Dec 29, 2004, 07:37 AM

Adding write NTFS support is not something you do lightly. You leave yourself open to liability if you should break anything - and you never know what MS does in the next service pack. I very much doubt that Apple will ever add write support unless it is MS approved.

tooki · Dec 29, 2004, 11:19 AM

Originally posted by PurpleGiant:
How then does Apple already have read access?

Question: What does Linux on x86 do with NTFS drives? Can it read them?

Panther includes the read-only NTFS software that was originally written for Linux. It's open-source software in action!

The Linux NTFS code is also read-only. Writing NTFS requires knowledge that only MS possesses. While it has been reverse-engineered, the Linux read-write implementation of NTFS is buggy, and so writes often corrupt the disk.

tooki

Angus_D · Dec 29, 2004, 06:55 PM

Originally posted by tooki:
Panther includes the read-only NTFS software that was originally written for Linux. It's open-source software in action!

Actually, it's from FreeBSD.

tooki · Dec 29, 2004, 07:03 PM

AFAIK, it's just the GNU one, which is equally at home on FreeBSD and Linux. But since most people (and most likely the person who asked) don't have any idea what GNU is, I said Linux.

tooki

senseigmg · Jan 13, 2005, 11:03 AM

I have an external NTFS enclosed 200gig. If i use virtual pc, can I read and write to the drive?

tooki · Jan 13, 2005, 12:05 PM

If it's USB, actually yes. But unless VPC 7 was updated to support USB 2, it'll be limited to USB 1.1 speed.

If it's FireWire, no.

tooki

senseigmg · Jan 13, 2005, 12:30 PM

arg, its firewire. Is it possible to network my dell to the powerbook, either ethernet or firewire, and then pull files from the drive through there?

Angus_D · Jan 13, 2005, 01:21 PM

Originally posted by tooki:
AFAIK, it's just the GNU one, which is equally at home on FreeBSD and Linux. But since most people (and most likely the person who asked) don't have any idea what GNU is, I said Linux.

What is the "GNU one"? I don't think GNU have an ntfs implementation. Certainly the linux-ntfs project isn't owned by them. And anyway the implementation for OS X is derived from a BSD-licensed implementation by Semen Ustimenko, which is for FreeBSD.

I certainly doubt that filesystem drivers are compatible between FreeBSD and Linux, as well.

For your reference:
http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/
http://iclub.nsu.ru/~semen/
http://darwinsource.opendarwin.org/1.../ntfs_vfsops.c

Hi I'm Ben · Jan 13, 2005, 02:28 PM

Originally posted by senseigmg:
arg, its firewire. Is it possible to network my dell to the powerbook, either ethernet or firewire, and then pull files from the drive through there?

If it's NTFS, leave it attached to the dell and yes, you can pull files from there.

OmniX · Jan 13, 2005, 08:35 PM

AngusD - very interesting.
i'm surprised though that the date on that darwin source file is from 1999!
hasn't most work on NTFS implementations for *nix systems been more recent?

utidjian · Jan 13, 2005, 10:52 PM

Originally posted by OmniX:
AngusD - very interesting.
i'm surprised though that the date on that darwin source file is from 1999!
hasn't most work on NTFS implementations for *nix systems been more recent?

Supposedly the work on a *BSD driver for NTFS began in 1994. For Linux it was in 1995. It appears that both platforms developed their own NTFS drivers independently. When exactly NTFS support appeared in FreeBSD (or in Mac OS X) as standard and which version is difficult to determine. My guess would be 1999 and the current version should be >= 3.1. See: http://iclub.nsu.ru/~semen/ntfs/

The Linux timeline and development process seems to be a bit easier to get info on. See:
http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/ntfs.html#3.8
http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/ntfs.html#3.9
http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/ntfs.html
http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/misc.html#credits
Should cover the who, where, how, why kinda questions.

tooki · Jan 13, 2005, 11:19 PM

Mac OS X 10.2 was the first to include NTFS support of any kind. Before that, it had to be added by the user.

Thanks for clarifying its heritage, though.

tooki

OmniX · Jan 14, 2005, 12:55 AM

so has Apple actually done any work on the NTFS driver--have they improved/contributed anything, or are they just using the implementation that the *BSD folks worked out?