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angelmb · Aug 22, 2011, 07:17 AM

Which one is the best, cleanest option out there.?

TIA.

P · Aug 22, 2011, 07:25 AM

Probably this one, but it's not free. This project has promise, but I don't think it's about done yet.

angelmb · Aug 22, 2011, 08:19 AM

Originally Posted by P

Probably this one, but it's not free.

Thanks P. I like that one, looks very polished.

BTW, I've tried formatting the external portable hard drive (WD My Passport Essential) as exFAT but its default Allocation Unit Size being 128 KB so more wasted space.

Spheric Harlot · Aug 22, 2011, 09:09 AM

There's also this: PARAGON Software Group - NTFS for Mac, communication channel between Mac OS X and Windows

angelmb · Aug 22, 2011, 01:02 PM

After installing Tuxera NTFS and restarting the Mac Pro, I got a weird issue where the mouse pointer would move annoyingly slow. Then after an additional restart, it was fixed but alas, as soon as I tried to open the BootCamp drive, I got a kernel panic. So, I uninstalled it.

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot

There's also this: PARAGON Software Group - NTFS for Mac, communication channel between Mac OS X and Windows

Thanks S.H.

BTW, it seems there is this trick that lets Windows users read HFS+ formatted hard drives after having run the Bootcamp.msi (or Bootcamp64.msi for Windows 64bit Editions) installer from the Snow Leopard DVD on a PC.

P · Aug 22, 2011, 02:31 PM

It was not trick on my model - Bootcamp installed a read-only HFS+ driver along with all the other drivers.

Eug · Aug 22, 2011, 02:39 PM

MacDrive is good if you want to read/write HFS+ on Windows. The last time I used MacDrive it was really polished, but that was a while back.

Mediafour - MacDrive - Access Mac Disks |

And of course there is exFAT but I have no experience with it.

Eug · Jun 18, 2012, 03:31 PM

So, is this correct?

Paragon NTFS roughly competitive with Tuxera NTFS in terms of speed and reliability, but cost money.
3G-NTFS much slower with no direct support, but it's free, and developed by Tuxera and is supposedly just as stable as Tuxera NTFS.

I'm finding I'm needing NTFS support and wondering if I should pay for it, and if so, which one I should pay for. if 3G-NTFS is stable I'd probably just stick with that, because I'd mainly be using NTFS with USB drives and slow laptop 5400 rpm drives, both over USB 2.0.

angelmb · Jun 19, 2012, 02:23 AM

I ended choosing Paragon NTFS for Mac and am very happy with it.

Eug · Jun 19, 2012, 09:37 AM

Any particular reason you chose Paragon over Tuxera? Was it because Tuxera was late coming to Lion?

I note that on the Android side, Asus has chosen Tuxera's Linux/Android drivers, but I have no idea specifically why. Note though that Tuxera supports exFAT and Paragon doesn't, which may be one reason Tuxera is more popular for Android.

Paragon is a lot cheaper for Mac OS X though, at US$20. Tuxera's full-speed version is 25 Euro (but their much slower 3G-NTFS implementation is free).

I'm thinking of waiting until Mountain Lion is out, and then buying whatever's first to it and cheaper, which based on history may be Paragon... or else just installing 3G-NTFS from Tuxera for free. For now on Lion I'll just install 3G-NTFS and test that out. I don't want to pay $20-35 only to have to pay it again in a few months when Mountain Lion ships.

angelmb · Jun 19, 2012, 01:55 PM

Any particular reason you chose Paragon over Tuxera? Was it because Tuxera was late coming to Lion?

Well, Paragon NTFS was the only solution that worked fine back in the day when I needed it. As simple as that.