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I currently use ntfs-3g on my mac to be able to write to NTFS-formatted drives. I have seen two commercial alternatives that boast better performance and more advanced features - Tuxera (a commercial version of ntfs-3g it seems) and Paragon.

Are these products really better? Any experiences, hard facts, benchmarks from real-world use?

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4 Answers

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NTFS-3G community edition is free. I use it with Macfuse

http://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-download/

http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/

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I'm confused, the ask-er said "I currently use ntfs-3g on my mac..." How is this an answer? – benc Jun 1 '10 at 2:39
Oops ! The asker edited his question...? – redben Jun 25 '10 at 22:02
no he didn't...? – BloodPhilia Aug 16 '10 at 11:50
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I bought Tuxera and have been using it for a while now. I have noticed a few improvements:

  • Faster read and write. I haven't made a benhcmark but it's noticeable, I used to reflect on how slow a NTFS drive was when connected to the mac, I don't have that reflection anymore.

  • Handles drives that have been "yanked" without unmounting them first. With NTFS-3G I would often have to use a windows computer to handle this.

  • Not a single stability issue despite pretty intense usage, local windows partitions and external drives being juggled about pretty frequently.

So the answer to my original question is "yes", it is worth paying for.

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OSX can already read and write NTFS partitions.

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I assume you are referring to the fstab "hack" - I didn't mention it because there are reports of it not being stable, some even mentioning file corruption and kernel panics. If you have experience with it I'd like to hear more though. In any case the question remains. Despite the free options - Is it worth buying a commercial NTFS implementation? – Console Mar 24 '10 at 22:56
No, I'm using Snow Leopard and have NTFS partitions mounted without doing anything special. – Rich Bradshaw Mar 25 '10 at 8:36
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Snow leopard mounts NTFS drives as read-only. If you want to write you must do something special. Perhaps your drives are FAT-formatted? – Console Mar 25 '10 at 23:53
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Paragon has a 10 day free trial. Install it and see for yourself.

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