MACs can't read/write NTFS!?!?!!!

So I decided to get a brand new macbook pro 13" and I'm lovin it so far.

Then one day I plug in my 1tb hdd and come to find out Macs can't write to NTFS hard drives.

What....the....heck, so now I have to wait 10hrs again to reformat my 1TB to FAT32, oh wait fat32 is limited to 2GB files. Great.

Is there a reason why MACs can't right to NTFS drives? This is a big let down.

 

I thought that macs could do that, but if you say then can't there are still options like http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/ .

 

Oh I see I have to pay to get Macs to write NTFS. Awesome! /sarcasm

 

Do some research first...

http://www.ntfs-3g.org/

p.s. It does not take 10 hours to format to FAT32 if you do choose to. or HFS+. It takes me way less to format a 1.5TB drive... BTW if you just googled OSX NTFS and chose the first link you would have gotten to the right page.

 

Thanks, I actually did find that. Thank the good people at Google for creating such a great tool. Still sucks that Macs don't support this natively though.

1tb reformat via usb took me almost 10hrs.

 

Thats OSX being stupid. It assumes that you have a new drive and does not do a quit reformat. Plus being over USB. Do yourself a favor and get a Firewire 800 enclosure.

 

I use NTFS-3G and love it.

Although if you have the means to reformat it without loosing your info and you don't need it to read to Windows just format it to HFS (Mac format).

 

HFS+ supposedly doesnt need defragmentation. Not sure how that works but since I am drinking tons of Apple koolaid Ill drink some more.

 

1TB format takes about 5 seconds. You don't need to do a full format - just a quick format.

 

Try plugging an HFS+ HDD to a Windows OS and see what happens.

 

5 secs? BS

Quick format is not the same

 

In 2 months apple will fix this issue, they have already announced that Snow Leopard will natively support NTFS read/write.
Problem solved no?
a

 

My drive is esata, which is faster than firewire, but Macs don't support esata either. So I'm stuck with USB.

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HFS+ is not standard, NTFS is

Anyway the NTFS 3G worked like a charm. Hopefully Snow Leopard does fix this, like mentioned above.

This reminds me of the copy/paste issue on the iphone. These are just things that should be on these devices without a question.

 

So fat32 for now , but when installing bootcamp it says the largest FAT32 partition is 32GB , is there any way of making this larger.

I know swisknife will format a 250gb fat32 partion in windows, but is it possible on the mac.

 

Its the same as Linux in this respect, NTFS is proprietary microsoft for a long time it was experimental, you could buy a module or whatever that would read pretty well but writing is scary. These days support for it is pretty good atleast for actually used versions of ntfs.

Many distro's now carry built in read but not all, i think some carry write as well its been awhile for me. But i think apple was just playing it safe with microsoft who tried to sue over FAT of all things lol.

EDIT - Didnt see that snow leopard will support, i still think apple was playing it safe.

 

NTFS and HFS+ are closed spec file formats, so implementing support for either would require licensing fees. And as we all know, both companies don't exactly like one another.

 

False

True

I know your upset but your lying to yourself by saying NTFS is open and a standard. At least with Mac you can read NTFS, PC's won't even acknowledge the existence of HFS... and like many have posted there are 3rd party solutions available, and when snow leopard comes out its only PCs that are gonna be selective and restrictive
a

 

Wow, I love the idea that Snow Leopard will read and write to NTFS! I didn't know that! I sure am glad I chose to use NTFS-3G for the time being. Long story short, use third party add-ons and wait for snow leopard!

 

How is the NTFS-3G going ,does it work OK, I should get my new mac on the 13th or earlier.

 

Isn't leopard supposed to natively read and write to NTFS?

 

Sorry, but you really need to do some more reading to understand what you're talking about here. Comparing copy/paste to OS specific disk formats?? Really??

 

It's expected to be supported by Snow Leopard. Leopard only supports reading from NTFS disks.

 

I have done enough reading.

If you are a company with less than 5% marketshare and you want to compete, you better support what the majority of what the users are using.

NTFS, maybe be windows specific, but the majority of consumers are using windows.

 

Why support what the majority of the consumers are using when Macs are bought so the majority of the buyers can use OS X.

And its 10% market share.

There is nothing hard about downloading Mac Fuse and NTFS-3g which are completely free to read and write

And at least OS X can read NTFS drives, try putting a HFS drive into windows.

 

there is free open source software to handle this.

this type of functionality would be convenient out of the box, but whatever. ntfs is a closed format and it isn't as trivial as you might expect to be able to mount an ntfs drive in unix.

 

Obviously not enough or you'd understand.

I guess that's why you aren't running Apple

If the majority of people decided to jump off a cliff are you going to follow suit?

 

the majority of consumers are also not using mac machines.

it just so happens that the majority of mac users are using apple's operating system, and therefore do not need ntfs.

but again, there is free open source software which caters directly to this need if you want it.

 

NTFS rules the world!

 

No, Rupert Murdoch rules the world.

 

10% actually...and it is rising, so their strategy is not that bad...

 

The majority of people use band aids for cuts. By your logic I shouldn't be using band aids. See how analogies like that are irrelevant?

Because I have a mac and a pc. If steve jobs wants more converts, they would support NTFS.

Still a drop in the bucket

Has already been stated. And why would a windows user bother HFS?

 

look, it is very simple. if you want windows, the best solution is to use windows.

if you want to use leopard, you need to accept that it is not windows. most osx users are not plugging their machines into NTFS drives.

nevertheless, full NTFS support would be convenient for many people. fortunately, a solution for this exists already. it is free, and open source. additionally, apple is developing NTFS write capabilities for their OS which they will release in a few months.

why are you still complaining?

 

I have this NTFS 3G and whenever i restarted my mac, it says the stupid thing wasnt ejected before shut down. How do i eject it ?

 

Mmm, me thinks this is just another thread where PC fanboys try and throw flames out of insecurity. As many have stated there are free open solutions to your problem. But you have no interest in actually solving your problem only complaining (for no reason) about a non-issue.
Mods close this now please!
a

 

You guys are taking it to the extreme of "Why can't Xbox360 play PS3 game discs?"

If you really need NTFS you go ahead and download NTFS-3G and Macfuse and that's that.

 

Because he can! There's clearly no rational argument left here.

 

You have a source for that? Gartner puts Apple at 7.5% in the US and much below 5% (Lenovo, at 7.7%, is the last one I saw in their graphics, and Apple is lumped in "others" at something like 3.5%) in Q1 worldwide sales. So if they are at 10% installed based, then they are losing marketshare, unless people are turning over their PCs much more often.

 

That's exactly right.

It's similar to "I diesel fuel into my petrol car and it didn't work". Unfortunately corporations love their proprietary formats because of the pain you have just experienced lol.

If you are only using the drive for OS X, HFS will work MUCH better than FAT32.

 

Look at post #5, everything has already been solved and has been stated. What post # are we on now? lol

Yet Mac fans wanted to drag it on and on. I'm already happy with the fix, and just said it sucks that its not supported natively. That was all.

I own the new mac pro 13" and I love it, so any PC remarks towards me is unsubstantiated.

Learn to read the beginning of this thread first before posting.