My God, how many times do I have to complain about Ms Frostfire before she gives up this ridiculous campaign for the ancient FAT-32 format.
EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT USING AN NTFS FORMAT DRIVE WITH MAC AND WINDOWS
RULE ONE: Do not use any FAT format on any large drive volume. Because of the issue of ever-increasing allocation unit size with increasing drive volume, it is only suitable for 32Gb or smaller thumb drives.
If you don't care about the background of this issue and your Mac is running OS 10.7 or later, jump right down to the paragraph: "-->>>To use NTFS drive volumes as read-write in OS 10.7…" Otherwise, here are the dirty details.
Mac OS as it comes from Apple can only allow reading from an NTFS formatted drive volume. It doesn't allow copying files to it (or saving or renaming or relocation or erasing any file). To add the write attribute, you have to install two items (the two might be bundled into a multi-package installer)…
1) a kernel extension with user-space C library, and the Objective-C framework. This "prepares" the OS for adding a new file system
…and…
2) a file system plug-in, a.k.a. "a driver".
You have at least five options for Mac OS to use an NTFS drive for both read and write:
-- Buy "Tuxera NTFS for Mac", US$33.95 (approximated for me based on currency exchange rate). http://www.tuxera.com/products/tuxera-ntfs-for-mac/ One installer for any version of OS 10.4 to 10.8.2, PPC or Intel.
-- Buy Paragon's "NTFS For Mac" (popular name), US$19.95. http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/ One installer for OS 10.5 to 10.8.2, Intel only.
-- Install NTFS-3G, free, for 32-bit kernels only (OS 10.6.8 or earlier). This item was originally a Google project that did not continue development after OS 10.7 was released. The installer is a multi-package with an installer for MacFuse in 32-bit version and an installer for NTFS-3G plug-in components.
-- Jump through all 9 of the hoops below to install the 64-bit OSXFuse and only one of the NTFS-3G packages inside the multi-package.
-- (This is the only one of these five options I have not tested.) Install the 64-bit version of MacFuse version 2.2.1 FIRST and then follow steps 3-9 below to install only one of the NTFS-3G packages inside the multi-package. Amazingly, this 64-bit development that was abandoned by Google was taken on by Tuxera! I wonder if they have some plan to put some lead weights into it to make their paid version look faster…. nah!
I have not found any performance advantage to the paid options, but they sure are easy to install and won't drive you mad like the free options might if you miss a step of the long and winding road to complete the installation. To reiterate, the reason for the 9 step plan is that NTFS-3G includes and installer package for a 32-bit version of MacFuse that will fail and stop the whole installation process. You have to avoid that package by following the steps below.
-->>> To use NTFS drive volumes as read-write in OS 10.7 or later, free and tested by me...
1) -- Download and install OSXFuse, link below. You MUST install this first. You may notice in the installer screen that the “MacFuse Compatibility Layer” is NOT selected. That’s how it should be; continue the installation.
2) -- Make a new folder at /Library/Receipts called "MacFUSE Core.pkg" and over-ride the nag pop-up about adding the extension.
3) -- Download NTFS-3G, link below.
4) -- Mount the NTFS-3G image, but DO NOT install--It has two packages inside, and will try to install the defunct MacFuse first, which would fail. Instead....
5) -- Right-click the "Install NTFS-3G.mpkg" file, and choose "Show Package Contents".
6) -- A new Finder window will open. Change the view option to list or columns.
7) -- Navigate to Contents > Packages.
8) -- Open "NTFS-3G.pkg" and install.
9) -- Restart.
If, when you connect an NTFS drive, you get a pop-up message about "NTFS-3G could not mount…. Did not receive a signal within 15.000000 seconds", it is inconsequential; the drive will work fine for both read and write and the pop-up will not re-appear, until you remove the dive and re-attach it or restart the computer with the drive attached. If the message annoys you, install this….
https://github.com/downloads/bfleischer/fuse_wait/fuse_wait-1.1.pkg
or not. It is beta software and worked for me. The developer may have a more stable version later. If you try the beta version and it causes any drive mounting issue, simply reinstall NTFS-3G and suffer the pop-up message.
Yes, it's a lot of putzing around, but that's how you save 20 bucks.