NTFS-3G for Mac OS X

Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2010.12-RC

2010-12-28T10:25:00.008+01:00

The latest release candidate of Tuxera NTFS for Mac, our high performance commercial NTFS driver is now out!

Download Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2010.12-RC

System requirements: A Mac (Intel or PowerPC) running Mac OS X 10.4 - 10.6.

You can purchase a license for Tuxera NTFS for Mac in the Online Shop.

Changes since Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2010.10:

Feature: Implemented automatic translation of characters that Windows Explorer considers invalid. These characters are now replaced with Services for Mac mappings (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q117258).

Change: The kernel portion of the driver has been further optimized for the 64-bit kernel (feedback is much appreciated).

Bugfix: The amount of free disk space wasn't updated properly in Finder at all times (affects Mac OS X 10.6).

Bugfix: Resource fork handling didn't conform fully to Mac OS X's expectations, leading to buggy behaviour in some programs.

All users are welcome to discuss any NTFS-3G or Tuxera NTFS-related issues on the Tuxera Support Forum.
Customers are encouraged to use our email support address to report problems. See your activation email for the address.

TUFS source code: tufs-tuxera_ntfs-2010.12.28.tar.bz2

Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2010.10

2010-10-11T10:00:00.012+02:00

The latest release of Tuxera NTFS for Mac, our high performance commercial NTFS driver is now out!

Download Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2010.10

System requirements: A Mac (Intel or PowerPC) running Mac OS X 10.4 - 10.6.

You can purchase a license for Tuxera NTFS for Mac in the Online Shop.

Changes since Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2010.9-RC:

Bugfix: Reenabled the 'create time' for Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6.

Bugfix: Fixed an issue where Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 produced an error while trying to save projects to an NTFS volume.

Bugfix: Worked around an issue with copying certain files containing unusually large extended attributes.

NTFS-3G for Mac OS X 2010.10.2

2010-10-11T10:00:00.009+02:00

What's new since NTFS-3G for Mac OS X 2010.8.8:

All in the NTFS-3G release notes.

The development of NTFS-3G for Mac OS X is funded by Tuxera Ltd.

Download:

System requirements:

Mac OS X 10.4/10.5/10.6 (10.6 requires that you do not use the 64-bit kernel), running on an Intel or PowerPC computer.

The package has been tested with Mac OS X 10.4.11/PowerPC, Mac OS X 10.5.8/PowerPC and Mac OS X 10.6.4/Intel/64-bit Intel.
NTFS-3G includes and depends on MacFUSE.

Information on how to install and use NTFS-3G for Mac OS X can be found in the User Guide.
If you are having problems with NTFS-3G, then please write a forum post explaining your problems in the Tuxera Forums (or post the question as a blog comment if you're just unsure of how things work).

Known issues:

After installing ntfs-3g, all NTFS drives will disappear from the "Startup Disk" preference pane. Disabling or uninstalling ntfs-3g brings them back. It seems that this issue can't be solved, but only worked around since the Startup Disk preference pane doesn't recognize file system drivers that are not provided by Apple.
Possible workarounds:
- Holding down the Option key during boot (or Alt for non-Apple keyboards).
- Intel users only: Install the rEFIt boot manager for better control of the boot process.
- Using the command line utility bless (see man bless for more information)

Many of you have probably noticed that we now have a commercially supported counterpart to NTFS-3G, Tuxera NTFS for Mac.
Tuxera NTFS for Mac builds on the reliable NTFS-3G code base, but has several premium enhancements. The most important one is the new high performance caching layer which makes Tuxera NTFS at least twice as fast as cached NTFS-3G, but in many cases boosts performance even more (see: performance comparison).
The Tuxera NTFS for Mac caching layer also eliminates the need to choose between safety (in the event of a power outage or system crash) and performance, which is a choice you'll have to make in NTFS-3G.

Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2010.9-RC

2010-09-08T09:14:00.014+02:00

The latest release candidate of Tuxera NTFS for Mac, our high performance commercial NTFS driver is now out!

Download Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2010.9-RC

System requirements: A Mac (Intel or PowerPC) running Mac OS X 10.4 - 10.6.

You can purchase a license for Tuxera NTFS for Mac in the Online Shop.

Changes since Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2010.7:

Eliminated the dependency on an external MacFUSE installation. Instead we include a customized rebranded version of MacFUSE as a part of the file system driver (source code).

Support for the fully 64-bit kernel which is used in the latest (mid-2010) Mac Pro workstations.

The file system driver now runs in native 64-bit mode on 64-bit capable Intel and PowerPC Macs.

Bugfix: Setting extended attributes (resource forks, quarantine flags, ...) would sometimes fail, leading to problems with file copying in the Finder.

Fix: The 'archive' flag is disabled for directories as a workaround for a Finder bug.

Fix: TrueCrypt volumes got permissions activated when they should not have been active.

All the latest changes in NTFS-3G are also included (up to 2010.8.8). See the NTFS-3G Release History for more info.

NTFS-3G for Mac OS X 2010.8.8

2010-09-08T09:06:00.003+02:00

What's new since NTFS-3G for Mac OS X 2010.5.22:

All in the NTFS-3G release notes.

Fix: A bug was discovered in the calculation of create times which means that create times were sometimes set to incorrect values.

The development of NTFS-3G for Mac OS X is funded by Tuxera Ltd.

Many of you have probably noticed that we now have a commercially supported counterpart to NTFS-3G, Tuxera NTFS for Mac.
Tuxera NTFS for Mac builds on the reliable NTFS-3G code base, but has several premium enhancements. The most important one is the new high performance caching layer which makes Tuxera NTFS at least twice as fast as cached NTFS-3G, but in many cases boosts performance even more (see: performance comparison).
The Tuxera NTFS for Mac caching layer also eliminates the need to choose between safety (in the event of a power outage or system crash) and performance, which is a choice you'll have to make in NTFS-3G.
Read more...

Download:

System requirements:

Mac OS X 10.4/10.5/10.6 (10.6 requires that you do not use the 64-bit kernel), running on an Intel or PowerPC computer.

After installing ntfs-3g, all NTFS drives will disappear from the "Startup Disk" preference pane. Disabling or uninstalling ntfs-3g brings them back. It seems that this issue can't be solved, but only worked around since the Startup Disk preference pane doesn't recognize file system drivers that are not provided by Apple.
Possible workarounds:
- Holding down the Option key during boot (or Alt for non-Apple keyboards).
- Intel users only: Install the rEFIt boot manager for better control of the boot process.
- Using the command line utility bless (see man bless for more information)

Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2010.7

2010-07-30T14:16:00.005+02:00

The latest release of Tuxera NTFS for Mac, our high performance commercial NTFS driver is now out!

Download Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2010.7

System requirements: A Mac (Intel or PowerPC) running Mac OS X 10.4 - 10.6 (32-bit kernel).

You can purchase a license for Tuxera NTFS for Mac in the Online Shop.

Changes since Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2010.6-RC2:

Compatibility fixes for the extended attribute mechanism to bring it as close to Apple's own filesystems as possible.

Changes since Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2010.1:

Extended attribute support (only for Mac OS X 10.5 and higher). Tuxera NTFS for Mac now supports storing Mac streams such as Finder information and resource forks as extended attributes, translating to Alternate Data Streams in Windows terminology. This means that NTFS drives will no longer be littered with '._' (AppleDouble) files. Services For Mac compatible attributes are used for the special attributes 'com.apple.FinderInfo' and 'com.apple.ResourceFork'.

Support for storing the Mac OS backup timestamp.

Fix: Tuxera NTFS for Mac could hijack non-NTFS volumes in extremely rare cases, leaving them unmountable until Tuxera NTFS for Mac was disabled.

Preference pane bugfix: The Tuxera NTFS for Mac preference pane will no longer leave zombie processes behind.

All the latest changes in NTFS-3G are also included. See the NTFS-3G Release History for more info.

All users are welcome to discuss any NTFS-3G or Tuxera NTFS-related issues on the Tuxera Support Forum.

Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2010.6-RC2

2010-06-30T08:06:00.023+02:00

The latest release candidate of Tuxera NTFS for Mac, our high performance commercial NTFS driver is now out!

Download Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2010.6-RC2

System requirements: A Mac (Intel or PowerPC) running Mac OS X 10.4 - 10.6 (32-bit kernel).

You can purchase a license for Tuxera NTFS for Mac in the Online Shop.

Changes since 2010.6-RC:

Bugfix: Create time was incorrectly converted to and from NTFS timestamps. Now 100 nanosecond-resolution create times are implemented properly.

Bugfix: The meaning of the 'archive' flag was inverted compared to Mac OS X's expectations, which led to problems for Microsoft Excel 2008 and possibly other applications.

Changes since Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2010.1:

Extended attribute support (only for Mac OS X 10.5 and higher). Tuxera NTFS for Mac now supports storing Mac streams such as Finder information and resource forks as extended attributes, translating to Alternate Data Streams in Windows terminology. This means that NTFS drives will no longer be littered with '._' (AppleDouble) files. Services For Mac compatible attributes are used for the special attributes 'com.apple.FinderInfo' and 'com.apple.ResourceFork'.

Support for storing the Mac OS backup timestamp.

Fix: Tuxera NTFS for Mac could hijack non-NTFS volumes in extremely rare cases, leaving them unmountable until Tuxera NTFS for Mac was disabled.

Preference pane bugfix: The Tuxera NTFS for Mac preference pane will no longer leave zombie processes behind.

All the latest changes in NTFS-3G are also included. See the NTFS-3G Release History for more info.

All users are welcome to discuss any NTFS-3G or Tuxera NTFS-related issues on the Tuxera Support Forum.

NTFS-3G for Mac OS X 2010.5.22

2010-06-30T08:06:00.021+02:00

What's new since NTFS-3G for Mac OS X 2010.1.16:

All in the NTFS-3G release notes.

Fix: NTFS-3G could hijack non-NTFS volumes in extremely rare cases, leaving them unmountable until NTFS-3G was disabled.

Preference pane bugfix: The NTFS-3G preference pane will no longer leave zombie processes behind.

System requirements:

Mac OS X 10.4/10.5/10.6 (10.6 requires that you do not use the 64-bit kernel), running on an Intel or PowerPC computer.

The package has been tested with Mac OS X 10.4.11/PowerPC/Intel, Mac OS X 10.5.8/PowerPC and Mac OS X 10.6.3/Intel/64-bit Intel.
NTFS-3G includes and depends on MacFUSE.

Information on how to install and use NTFS-3G for Mac OS X can be found in the User Guide.
If you are having problems with NTFS-3G, then please write a forum post explaining your problems in the Tuxera Forums (or post the question as a blog comment if you're just unsure of how things work).

Known issues:

After installing ntfs-3g, all NTFS drives will disappear from the "Startup Disk" preference pane. Disabling or uninstalling ntfs-3g brings them back. It seems that this issue can't be solved, but only worked around since the Startup Disk preference pane doesn't recognize file system drivers that are not provided by Apple.
Possible workarounds:
- Holding down the Option key during boot (or Alt for non-Apple keyboards).
- Intel users only: Install the rEFIt boot manager for better control of the boot process.
- Using the command line utility bless (see man bless for more information)

Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2010.1

2010-01-20T05:18:00.005+01:00

Note: This is an important bugfix release which solves the issue described in KB974729.

The latest release of Tuxera NTFS for Mac, our high performance commercial NTFS driver is now out!

Download Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2010.1

System requirements: A Mac (Intel or PowerPC) running Mac OS X 10.4 - 10.6 (32-bit kernel).

You can purchase a license for Tuxera NTFS for Mac in the Online Shop.

Changes since 2009.12-RC:

A fix for the issue described in KB974729, in which NTFS drives were rendered unmountable in Windows Vista and Windows 7 in rare cases after being used extensively with Tuxera NTFS for Mac or NTFS-3G. After this update, Tuxera NTFS for Mac will no longer trigger this condition.
To fix existing drives, please install the hotfix provided by Microsoft and follow instructions.
If you have been affected by this issue and need assistance, don't hesitate to contact our premium support email address (see your activation email).

All users are welcome to discuss any NTFS-3G or Tuxera NTFS-related issues on the Tuxera Support Forum.

NTFS-3G for Mac OS X 2010.1.16

2010-01-19T17:49:00.005+01:00

Note: This is an important bugfix release which solves the issue described in KB974729.

What's new since 2009.11.14:

All in the NTFS-3G release notes.

In particular, this release solves the problem where NTFS-3G in rare cases renders an NTFS volume unmountable in Windows Vista and Windows 7, as described in KB974729.
Users are encouraged to apply the hotfix provided by Microsoft, designed to fix the issue for existing drives.

Bugfix: Formatting NTFS volumes failed for some people because of a bug in the formatting utility.

System requirements:

Mac OS X 10.4/10.5/10.6 (10.6 requires that you do not use the 64-bit kernel), running on an Intel or PowerPC computer.

The package has been tested with Mac OS X 10.4.11/PowerPC/Intel, Mac OS X 10.5.8/PowerPC and Mac OS X 10.6.2/Intel/64-bit Intel.
NTFS-3G includes and depends on MacFUSE.

Information on how to install and use NTFS-3G for Mac OS X can be found in the User Guide.
If you are having problems with NTFS-3G, then please write a forum post explaining your problems in the Tuxera Forums (or post the question as a blog comment if you're just unsure of how things work).

Known issues:

After installing ntfs-3g, all NTFS drives will disappear from the "Startup Disk" preference pane. Disabling or uninstalling ntfs-3g brings them back. It seems that this issue can't be solved, but only worked around since the Startup Disk preference pane doesn't recognize file system drivers that are not provided by Apple.
Possible workarounds:
- Holding down the Option key during boot (or Alt for non-Apple keyboards).
- Intel users only: Install the rEFIt boot manager for better control of the boot process.
- Using the command line utility bless (see man bless for more information)

Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2009.12-RC

2009-12-27T07:24:00.006+01:00

The latest Release Candidate of Tuxera NTFS for Mac, our high performance commercial NTFS driver is now out!

Download Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2009.12-RC

System requirements: A Mac (Intel or PowerPC) running Mac OS X 10.4 - 10.6 (32-bit kernel).

You can purchase a license for Tuxera NTFS for Mac in the Online Shop.

Changelog:

Performance improvements: Tuxera NTFS for Mac now includes many of the improvements featured in Tuxera NTFS for Embedded systems, designed to further increase performance and reduce unnecessary driver workload, especially when working with many smaller files and traversing large directory hierarchies.
For example, when crawling a test volume recursively, 2009.12-RC was nearly 40% faster than 2009.10.

Performance improvements: The caching layer has been improved with more efficient lookup, which means less CPU overhead, and measures have been taken to minimize the amount of excess data that is read when accessing files in a random fashion.

Feature: Tuxera NTFS for Mac now includes a new preference pane option "Disable recovery dialog for hibernated volumes", which makes the driver ignore NTFS volumes that contain a hibernated Windows session instead of showing a dialog asking the user whether it wants to purge the hibernated state or abort mounting.

Bugfix: Fix for some users of Snow Leopard who had problems with formatting NTFS volumes (Tuxera NTFS was not displayed as a formatting option at all times).

Fix: General usability improvements in the installer and preference pane.

Fix: Minor fixes to improve compatibility with the built-in NTFS driver.

Experimental: Tuxera NTFS now attempts to mount Windows LDM partitions by default. This will not work at all times, but one user did benefit from this change.

Because of large changes for the codebase, this release is labeled a Release Candidate, and we would appreciate some feedback from users.
Please post your experiences here among the blog comments, or on the Tuxera Support Forum.

NTFS-3G for Mac OS X 2009.11.14

2009-12-03T04:44:00.014+01:00

What's new:

All in the NTFS-3G release notes.

The 'legacy' build is now definitely dropped.

The user can now choose at install time whether or not caching should be enabled, with a brief explanation of the benefits and drawbacks of using the ublio caching layer.

Bugfix: Firefox was unable to save files to an NTFS-3G mounted volume because of missing 'setchgtime' implementation.

Bugfix: Mounting an NTFS volumes with a non-ASCII volume name led to an error message when mounting (though mounting did complete successfully).

Bugfix: Formatting internal volumes didn't work because of Mac OS X shell script suid limitations.

Snow Leopard fix: Uninstalling now works properly.

Snow Leopard fix: Preference pane now has 64-bit code compiled into it, so that 64-bit Mac users won't have to restart the System Preferences application in order to use NTFS-3G's preference pane.

Change: The log file has been moved from /var/log/ntfs-3g_util.log to /Library/Logs/ntfs-3g_util.log.

Many smaller fixes that result from merging the Tuxera NTFS and NTFS-3G brances of several utilities.

The development of this new Mac version was funded by Tuxera Ltd.

Many of you have probably noticed that we have launched a commercially supported counterpart to NTFS-3G this fall, Tuxera NTFS for Mac.
Tuxera NTFS for Mac builds on the reliable NTFS-3G code base, but has several premium enhancements. The most important one is the new high performance caching layer which makes Tuxera NTFS at least twice as fast as cached NTFS-3G, but in many cases boosts performance even more (see: performance comparison).
The Tuxera NTFS for Mac caching layer also eliminates the need to choose between safety (in the event of a power outage or system crash) and performance, which is a choice you'll have to make in NTFS-3G.
Read more...

Download:

System requirements:

Mac OS X 10.4/10.5/10.6 (10.6 requires that you do not use the 64-bit kernel), running on an Intel or PowerPC computer.

After installing ntfs-3g, all NTFS drives will disappear from the "Startup Disk" preference pane. Disabling or uninstalling ntfs-3g brings them back. It seems that this issue can't be solved, but only worked around since the Startup Disk preference pane doesn't recognize file system drivers that are not provided by Apple.
Possible workarounds:
- Holding down the Option key during boot (or Alt for non-Apple keyboards).
- Intel users only: Install the rEFIt boot manager for better control of the boot process.
- Using the command line utility bless (see man bless for more information)

Tuxera NTFS for Mac online shop now open

2009-10-14T12:13:00.004+02:00

We have just opened the doors to our online shop, where you can purchase a Tuxera NTFS for Mac license.

Tuxera NTFS for Mac aims to be the highest performance NTFS solution available on Mac OS X. It builds upon the proven stability and maturity of NTFS-3G, enhancing it with significant performance improvements and a better integration with Mac OS X, including extended support for Mac attributes, putting files in the trash bin, etc.

By purchasing Tuxera NTFS for Mac you're also supporting the development of its open source counterpart NTFS-3G, enabling the two projects to move forward side by side.

Tuxera NTFS for Mac

2009-10-05T18:38:00.009+02:00

Tuxera Ltd. is now announcing the availability of the first release candidate of Tuxera NTFS for Mac, our commercial NTFS offering for Mac OS X.
The release candidate can be used in 'trial' mode for 15 days. During these 15 days you can decide whether or not to purchase the product from our online shop.
When you have purchased a license, you will get a product key sent to you via email. You can then use the product key to activate the already installed copy of Tuxera NTFS (you can also choose to activate your license at install time).

Download Tuxera NTFS for Mac (Release Candidate)
Release announcement
Online shop (for purchasing a Tuxera NTFS for Mac license)

System requirements: A Mac (Intel or PowerPC) running Mac OS X 10.4 - 10.6 (32-bit kernel).

Tuxera NTFS for Mac builds upon NTFS-3G to deliver a stable, high performance NTFS driver for Mac OS X. The main focus for development has been to improve performance and at the same time minimize the risk of data corruption, even in situations such as system crashes and accidential disconnection of hard drives without proper unmounting.
We have also made sure to add a few more features, such as support for the Mac OS X 'locked' and 'hidden' attributes, support for putting files in the 'Trash' bin instead of just deleting them, etc.

We need people to test this release candidate before putting it in 'release' mode, so any help would be appreciated.

The first 3 people to find a serious bug will be rewarded with a Tuxera NTFS for Mac license.
This does not include the following bugs, which are known:

Tuxera NTFS installer displays an error message after installing on systems with MacFUSE > 2.0.3 installed. (This is a MacFUSE bug.)
Switching between NTFS-3G and Tuxera NTFS preference panes within the same System Preferences session leads to bad interactions and confusing error messages. (This will be fixed in the non-RC release version.)

NTFS-3G 2009.4.4

2009-04-05T09:52:00.006+02:00

What's new:

All in the official release notes.

Simplified install procedure: NTFS-3G now installs MacFUSE (2.0.2/2.0.3) with it, so that users don't have to download two different packages to get read/write NTFS support working.

New preference pane version, 0.9.8: The user can now choose to always mount (recover) uncleanly unmounted volumes without user confirmation. (Some minor bugfixes also included.)

The NTFS-3G system preferences are now retained between installs, and limited support for automatically repairing damaged NTFS-3G settings has been added.

When asking for confirmation before mounting a volume with an unclean log file or a hibernated volume, the dialog informing the user that the mount succeeded has been removed.

The 'stable' and 'ublio' labels are dropped. We now have a 'standard' build, and a 'legacy' build in case anyone is still interested in the limited feature set of the old 'stable' build. The 'legacy' build will probably be removed in the future, unless anyone has a good reason that it should be kept maintained.

Download:

NTFS-3G 2009.4.4
NTFS-3G 2009.4.4 (legacy build)
Certain patches such as the caching layer are omitted in this build.

System requirements:

Mac OS X 10.4/10.5, running on an Intel or PowerPC computer.

The package has been tested with Mac OS X 10.4.11/Intel and Mac OS X 10.5.6/Intel.
NTFS-3G includes and depends on MacFUSE.

Information on how to install and use NTFS-3G for Mac OS X can be found in the User Guide.
If you are having problems with NTFS-3G, write a forum post about it in the NTFS-3G Forum (or post a question as a blog comment if you're just unsure of how things work).

Packaging, patching, Mac OS X-related development and testing is done in the context of my development efforts with the Catacombae projects.

Known issues:

After installing ntfs-3g, all NTFS drives will disappear from the "Startup Disk" preference pane. Disabling or uninstalling ntfs-3g brings them back. It seems that this issue can't be solved, but only worked around since the Startup Disk preference pane doesn't recognize file system drivers that are not provided by Apple.
Possible workarounds:
- Holding down the Option key during boot (or Alt for non-Apple keyboards).
- Intel users only: Install the rEFIt boot manager for better control of the boot process.
- Using the command line utility bless (see man bless for more information)

Sources:
ntfs-3g 2009.4.4 (patched)
ntfsprogs 1.13.1
NTFS-3G prefpane 0.9.8
fuse_wait.c
ntfs-3g_daemon.c
ntfs-3g_confirm_mount.c

NTFS-3G 2009.2.1 Update 1

2009-02-14T21:02:00.012+01:00

What's new:

All in the official release notes.

A dialog now exists for when the user tries to mount uncleanly unmounted or hibernated volumes, allowing the user to choose to force a mount without resorting to using the Terminal.
[screenshot 1] [screenshot 2]

ntfs-3g now locks (advisory) the device that it mounts with flock to decrease the probability of two processes concurrently trying to mount it.

NTFS-3G.prefPane is now at version 0.9.7. (No big changes)

[Update 1] Bugfix: Unmounting ejectable NTFS drives through Finder failed because Mac OS X claimed they were still in use.

[Update 1] Improvement: When locking devices, the corresponding alternate device is now also locked (i.e. when a /dev/disk device is mounted and locked, its /dev/rdisk device is locked as well, and vice versa).

[Update 1] ublio build: Performance tuning should boost performance for most users. Feedback is much appreciated.

Download:

NTFS-3G 2009.2.1 Update 1 [ublio]
Performance improved build using internal caching
NTFS-3G 2009.2.1 Update 1 [stable]
Slower, but minimizes corruption in the event of a system crash

System requirements:

Mac OS X 10.4/10.5, running on an Intel or PowerPC computer.
MacFUSE 2.0.2/2.0.3 or later installed.

The package has been tested with Mac OS X 10.4.11/Intel and Mac OS X 10.5.6/Intel.

Information on how to install and use NTFS-3G for Mac OS X can be found in the User Guide.
If you are having problems with NTFS-3G, write a post about it in the NTFS-3G Forum (or post a question as a blog comment if you're just unsure of how things work).

Packaging, patching, Mac OS X-related development and testing is done in the context of my development efforts with the Catacombae projects.

Known issues:

After installing ntfs-3g, all NTFS drives will disappear from the "Startup Disk" preference pane. Disabling or uninstalling ntfs-3g brings them back. It seems that this issue can't be solved, but only worked around since the Startup Disk preference pane doesn't recognize file system drivers that are not provided by Apple.
Possible workarounds:
- Holding down the Option key during boot (or Alt for non-Apple keyboards).
- Intel users only: Install the rEFIt boot manager for better control of the boot process.
- Using the command line utility bless (see man bless for more information)

Sources:
ntfs-3g 2009.2.1 (patched, update 1)
ntfsprogs 1.13.1
NTFS-3G prefpane 0.9.7
fuse_wait.c
ntfs-3g_daemon.c
ntfs-3g_confirm_mount.c

NTFS-3G 2009.2.1

2009-02-12T13:30:00.005+01:00

What's new:

All in the official release notes.

A dialog now exists for when the user tries to mount uncleanly unmounted or hibernated volumes, allowing the user to choose to force a mount without resorting to using the Terminal.

ntfs-3g now locks (advisory) the device that it mounts with flock to decrease the probability of two processes concurrently trying to mount it.

NTFS-3G.prefPane is now at version 0.9.7. (No big changes)

Download:

NTFS-3G 2009.2.1 [ublio]
High performance build using internal caching
NTFS-3G 2009.2.1 [stable]
Slower, but minimizes corruption in the event of a system crash

System requirements:

Mac OS X 10.4/10.5, running on an Intel or PowerPC computer.
MacFUSE 2.0.2/2.0.3 or later installed.

After installing ntfs-3g, all NTFS drives will disappear from the "Startup Disk" preference pane. Disabling or uninstalling ntfs-3g brings them back. It seems that this issue can't be solved, but only worked around since the Startup Disk preference pane doesn't recognize file system drivers that are not provided by Apple.
Possible workarounds:
- Holding down the Option key during boot (or Alt for non-Apple keyboards).
- Intel users only: Install the rEFIt boot manager for better control of the boot process.
- Using the command line utility bless (see man bless for more information)

Sources:
ntfs-3g 2009.2.1 (patched)
ntfsprogs 1.13.1
NTFS-3G prefpane 0.9.7
fuse_wait.c
ntfs-3g_daemon.c
ntfs-3g_confirm_mount.c

NTFS-3G 2009.1.1 Update 1

2009-01-29T05:46:00.020+01:00

What's new:

All in the official release notes.

An NTFS-3G preference pane has been added after some time in development. The preference pane can be used to set NTFS-3G options and uninstall NTFS-3G. Open your System Preferences application after installation to try it out.
[screenshot]

Filename normalization code has been added to increase compatibility with Windows filenames including western/greek filenames with accents, and korean filenames.
Normalization is enabled by default, but can be switched off using the preference pane.
Note that using normalization may render the accented/korean filenames that you have previously created using Mac OS X / NTFS-3G inaccessible, so please test which mode works best for your particular drive.

The driver now supports returning and setting the create date for a file/directory. (This has been integrated in the main ntfs-3g source tree.)

All file names returned that break the 255 byte limit are now truncated to 255 bytes to avoid breaking a directory listing.

Update 1: Fix for an issue with certain applications being unable to save files to the NTFS-3G volume. This was caused by not having a setbkuptime implementation. Fixed by creating a setbkuptime stub pretending to set the backup time (there is no such thing as backup time in NTFS).

Download:

NTFS-3G 2009.1.1 Update 1 [ublio]
High performance build using internal caching
NTFS-3G 2009.1.1 Update 1 [stable]
Slower, but minimizes corruption in the event of a system crash

System requirements:

Mac OS X 10.4/10.5, running on an Intel or PowerPC computer.
MacFUSE 2.0.2/2.0.3 or later installed.

After installing ntfs-3g, all NTFS drives will disappear from the "Startup Disk" preference pane. Disabling or uninstalling ntfs-3g brings them back. It seems that this issue can't be solved, but only worked around since the Startup Disk preference pane doesn't recognize file system drivers that are not provided by Apple.
Possible workarounds:
- Holding down the Option key during boot (or Alt for non-Apple keyboards).
- Intel users only: Install the rEFIt boot manager for better control of the boot process.
- Using the command line utility bless (see man bless for more information)

Sources:
ntfs-3g 2009.1.1 Update 1 (patched)
ntfsprogs 1.13.1
NTFS-3G prefpane 0.9.6
fuse_wait.c
ntfs-3g_daemon.c

NTFS-3G 2009.1.1

2009-01-28T18:23:00.005+01:00

What's new:

All in the official release notes.

An NTFS-3G preference pane has been added after some time in development. The preference pane can be used to set NTFS-3G options and uninstall NTFS-3G. Open your System Preferences application after installation to try it out.

Filename normalization code has been added to increase compatibility with Windows filenames including western filenames with accents, and korean filenames.
Normalization is enabled by default, but can be switched off using the preference pane.
Note that using normalization may render the filenames that you have previously created using Mac OS X / NTFS-3G inaccessible, so please test which mode works best for your particular drive.

The driver now supports returning the create date for a file/directory. (This has been integrated in the main ntfs-3g source tree.)

All file names returned that break the 255 byte limit are now truncated to 255 bytes to avoid breaking a directory listing.

Download NTFS-3G 2009.1.1 [ublio] (performance patches applied)
Download NTFS-3G 2009.1.1 [stable]

Packaging, patching, some OS X-related development and testing is done in the context of my development efforts with the Catacombae projects.

Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4/10.5, a PowerPC or Intel computer, MacFUSE 2.0.2/2.0.3 or later installed.
This package has been tested with Mac OS X 10.4.11/Intel and Mac OS X 10.5.6/Intel.

Information on how to install and use NTFS-3G for Mac OS X can be found in the User Guide.
If you are having problems with NTFS-3G, write a post about it in the NTFS-3G Forum (or post a question as a blog comment if you're just unsure of how things work).

Known issues:

After installing ntfs-3g, all NTFS drives will disappear from the "Startup Disk" preference pane. Disabling or uninstalling ntfs-3g brings them back. I don't have a solution for this, but you can still choose your startup drive by:
- Holding down the Option key during boot (or Alt for non-Apple keyboards).
- Intel users only: Install the rEFIt boot manager for better control of the boot process.
- Using the command line utility bless (see man bless for more information)
If you have any information on a pretty way of solving this issue, I'd love to hear about it.

Sources:
ntfs-3g 2009.1.1 (patched)
ntfsprogs 1.13.1
NTFS-3G prefpane 0.9.6
fuse_wait.c
ntfs-3g_daemon.c

NTFS-3G 1.5130 Update 2

2008-12-22T19:02:00.005+01:00

Mac specific service release:

MacFUSE detection code added, preventing the user to use NTFS-3G with broken MacFUSE releases such as the 2.0.0 release.

Download NTFS-3G 1.5130 Update 2 [ublio] (performance patches applied)
Download NTFS-3G 1.5130 Update 2 [stable]
Note: Beta release available, including a fix for the accented filenames issue.

Packaging, patching, some OS X-related development and testing is done in the context of my development efforts with the Catacombae projects.

Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4/10.5, a PowerPC or Intel computer, MacFUSE 2.0.2/2.0.3 or later installed.
This package has been tested with Mac OS X 10.4.11/Intel and Mac OS X 10.5.6/Intel.

Information on how to install and use NTFS-3G for Mac OS X can be found in the User Guide.
If you are having problems with NTFS-3G, write a post about it in the NTFS-3G Forum (or post a question as a blog comment if you're just unsure of how things work).

Known issues:

Files with filenames created in Windows containing international characters with accents, umlauts and similar dots and lines, or filenames with korean characters might seem unreadable in the Finder. This is because Finder apparently expects all filenames to appear in unicode decomposed form, while NTFS allows both composed and decomposed form filenames. This issue is hard to solve in a pretty way, but you should still be able to access these files when using the Terminal. For me, copying the affected files to a HFS+ drive using the command "cp" worked fine.

After installing ntfs-3g, all NTFS drives will disappear from the "Startup Disk" preference pane. Disabling or uninstalling ntfs-3g brings them back. I don't have a solution for this, but you can still choose your startup drive by:
- Holding down the Option key during boot (or Alt for non-Apple keyboards).
- Intel users only: Install the rEFIt boot manager for better control of the boot process.
- Using the command line utility bless (see man bless for more information)
If you have any information on a pretty way of solving this issue, I'd love to hear about it.

Sources:
ntfs-3g 1.5130u2 (patched)
ntfsprogs 1.13.1
fuse_wait.c
ntfs-3g_daemon.c

NTFS-3G 1.5130 Update 1

2008-12-10T14:06:00.008+01:00

Mac specific service release:

Bugfix: ntfs-3g_daemon was accidentially compiled for Mac OS X 10.5 only, causing severe problems for Tiger (10.4) users.

Required MacFUSE version is now 2.0.3.
Note: MacFUSE 2.0 had an issue which led to problems with data corruption in certain situations when using NTFS-3G. All users are urged to update to the latest MacFUSE release.

Download NTFS-3G 1.5130 Update 1 [ublio] (performance patches applied)
Download NTFS-3G 1.5130 Update 1 [stable]

Packaging, patching, some OS X-related development and testing is done in the context of my development efforts with the Catacombae projects.

Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4/10.5, a PowerPC or Intel computer, MacFUSE 2.0.3 or later installed.
This package has been tested with OS X 10.4.11/Intel and OS X 10.5.5/Intel.

Information on how to install and use NTFS-3G for Mac OS X can be found in the User Guide.
If you are having problems with NTFS-3G, write a post about it in the NTFS-3G Forum (or post a question as a blog comment if you're just unsure of how things work).

Known issues:

Files with filenames created in Windows containing international characters with accents, umlauts and similar dots and lines, or filenames with korean characters might seem unreadable in the Finder. This is because Finder apparently expects all filenames to appear in unicode decomposed form, while NTFS allows both composed and decomposed form filenames. This issue is hard to solve in a pretty way, but you should still be able to access these files when using the Terminal. For me, copying the affected files to a HFS+ drive using the command "cp" worked fine.

After installing ntfs-3g, all NTFS drives will disappear from the "Startup Disk" preference pane. Disabling or uninstalling ntfs-3g brings them back. I don't have a solution for this, but you can still choose your startup drive by:
- Holding down the Option key during boot (or Alt for non-Apple keyboards).
- Intel users only: Install the rEFIt boot manager for better control of the boot process.
- Using the command line utility bless (see man bless for more information)
If you have any information on a pretty way of solving this issue, I'd love to hear about it.

Sources:
ntfs-3g 1.5130 (patched)
ntfsprogs 1.13.1
fuse_wait.c
ntfs-3g_daemon.c

NTFS-3G 1.5130

2008-12-06T06:20:00.003+01:00

What's new:

Fix: Reading a data storage with permanent or temporary physical damage, or a partial read(2) system call could result ignoring the low level hardware error and returning invalid data. Upgrade is recommended.

Mac specific: Read-only mounts now have a better chance of succeeding, as the driver now properly parses the probe arguments.

Mac specific: All global settings have been moved out of the mount script and into the preference plist file /Library/Preferences/org.catacombae.macntfs-3g.DriverSettings.plist

Download NTFS-3G 1.5130 [ublio] (performance patches applied)
Download NTFS-3G 1.5130 [stable]

Packaging, patching, some OS X-related development and testing is done in the context of my development efforts with the Catacombae projects.

Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4/10.5, a PowerPC or Intel computer, MacFUSE 1.7 or later installed.
This package has been tested with OS X 10.4.11/Intel and OS X 10.5.5/Intel.

Information on how to install and use NTFS-3G for Mac OS X can be found in the User Guide.

Known issues:

Files with filenames created in Windows containing international characters with accents, umlauts and similar dots and lines, or filenames with korean characters might seem unreadable in the Finder. This is because Finder apparently expects all filenames to appear in unicode decomposed form, while NTFS allows both composed and decomposed form filenames. This issue is hard to solve in a pretty way, but you should still be able to access these files when using the Terminal. For me, copying the affected files to a HFS+ drive using the command "cp" worked fine.

After installing ntfs-3g, all NTFS drives will disappear from the "Startup Disk" preference pane. Disabling or uninstalling ntfs-3g brings them back. I don't have a solution for this, but you can still choose your startup drive by:
- Holding down the Option key during boot (or Alt for non-Apple keyboards).
- Intel users only: Install the rEFIt boot manager for better control of the boot process.
- Using the command line utility bless (see man bless for more information)
If you have any information on a pretty way of solving this issue, I'd love to hear about it.

Sources:
ntfs-3g 1.5130 (patched)
ntfsprogs 1.13.1
fuse_wait.c
ntfs-3g_daemon.c

NTFS-3G 1.5012

2008-10-12T18:41:00.005+02:00

What's new:

Version 1.2926-RC is released unchanged as stable. The NTFS-3G driver is able for unlimited file and directory creation and removal as the result of 13 years continuous development with the help of hundreds of contributors over these years.

Download NTFS-3G 1.5012 [ublio] (performance patches applied)
Download NTFS-3G 1.5012 [stable]

Packaging, patching, some OS X-related development and testing is done in the context of my development efforts with the Catacombae projects.

Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4/10.5, a PowerPC or Intel computer, MacFUSE 1.7 or later installed.
This package has been tested with OS X 10.4.11/Intel and OS X 10.5.5/Intel.

Information on how to install and use NTFS-3G for Mac OS X can be found in the User Guide.

Known issues:

Files with filenames created in Windows containing international characters with accents, umlauts and similar dots and lines, or filenames with korean characters might seem unreadable in the Finder. This is because Finder apparently expects all filenames to appear in unicode decomposed form, while NTFS allows both composed and decomposed form filenames. This issue is hard to solve in a pretty way, but you should still be able to access these files when using the Terminal. For me, copying the affected files to a HFS+ drive using the command "cp" worked fine.

After installing ntfs-3g, all NTFS drives will disappear from the "Startup Disk" preference pane. Disabling or uninstalling ntfs-3g brings them back. I don't have a solution for this, but you can still choose your startup drive by:
- Holding down the Option key during boot (or Alt for non-Apple keyboards).
- Intel users only: Install the rEFIt boot manager for better control of the boot process.
- Using the command line utility bless (see man bless for more information)
If you have any information on a pretty way of solving this issue, I'd love to hear about it.

Sources:
ntfs-3g 1.5012 (patched)
ntfsprogs 1.13.1
fuse_wait.c
ntfs-3g_daemon.c

NTFS-3G 1.2918

2008-09-19T21:35:00.003+02:00

Information on what's new in this version of NTFS-3G can be found at the NTFS-3G release page.

Changes for the Mac OS X specific components:

Bugfix: Inode numbers are now properly retained between mounts. use_ino had been disabled after a testing session a while back, and this change was inadvertently left in the code.

Download NTFS-3G 1.2918 [stable]
Download NTFS-3G 1.2918 [ublio] (patched for improved performance)

Packaging, patching, some OS X-related development and testing has been done by Catacombae Software (i.e. myself).

Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4/10.5, a PowerPC or Intel computer, MacFUSE 1.7 or later installed.
This package has been tested with OS X 10.4.11/Intel and OS X 10.5.4/Intel.

Information on how to install and use NTFS-3G for Mac OS X can be found in the User Guide.

Known issues:

Files with filenames created in Windows containing international characters with accents, umlauts and similar dots and lines, or filenames with korean characters might seem unreadable in the Finder. This is because Finder apparently expects all filenames to appear in unicode decomposed form, while NTFS allows both composed and decomposed form filenames. This issue is hard to solve in a pretty way, but you should still be able to access these files when using the Terminal. For me, copying the affected files to a HFS+ drive using the command "cp" worked fine.

After installing ntfs-3g, all NTFS drives will disappear from the "Startup Disk" preference pane. Disabling or uninstalling ntfs-3g brings them back. I don't have a solution for this, but you can still choose your startup drive by:
- Holding down the Option key during boot (or Alt for non-Apple keyboards).
- Intel users only: Install the rEFIt boot manager for better control of the boot process.
- Using the command line utility bless (see man bless for more information)
If you have any information on a pretty way of solving this issue, I'd love to hear about it.

Sources:
ntfs-3g 1.2918 (patched)
ntfsprogs 1.13.1
fuse_wait.c
ntfs-3g_daemon.c

NTFS-3G 1.2812

2008-08-20T08:44:00.003+02:00

Information on what's new in this version of NTFS-3G can be found at the NTFS-3G release page.

Changes for the Mac OS X specific components:

Important bugfix: In some cases NTFS-3G attempted to mount other partitions than those containing NTFS file systems, for instance hybrid CD-ROMs. This blocked certain types of media from being mounted. This was caused by incorrect interpretation of exit values from ntfs-3g.probe and has now been fixed.

Bugfix: The "Enable debug logging" and "Disable debug logging" scripts did not work as intended, and modified the wrong variable.

Bugfix: You can now create NTFS disk images using Disk Utility in Mac OS X 10.5. (This failed previously because of incorrect parsing of parameters.)

Improvement: The uninstall script now removes the complete file system bundle dir, instead of just removing the files inside it.

Improvement: A user guide to NTFS-3G has been written and is bundled with the install .dmg file as a PDF document.

Improvement: Internationalized description strings for the file system have been added for Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Portugese and Korean.

Download NTFS-3G 1.2812 [stable]
Download NTFS-3G 1.2812 [ublio] (patched for improved performance)

Packaging, patching, some OS X-related development and testing has been done by Catacombae Software (i.e. myself).

Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4/10.5, a PowerPC or Intel computer, MacFUSE 1.7 or later installed.
This package has been tested with OS X 10.4.11/Intel and OS X 10.5.4/Intel.

Information on how to install and use NTFS-3G for Mac OS X can be found in the User Guide.

Known issues:

Files with filenames created in Windows containing international characters with accents, umlauts and similar dots and lines, or filenames with korean characters might seem unreadable in the Finder. This is because Finder apparently expects all filenames to appear in unicode decomposed form, while NTFS allows both composed and decomposed form filenames. This issue is hard to solve in a pretty way, but you should still be able to access these files when using the Terminal. For me, copying the affected files to a HFS+ drive using the command "cp" worked fine.

After installing ntfs-3g, all NTFS drives will disappear from the "Startup Disk" preference pane. Disabling or uninstalling ntfs-3g brings them back. I don't have a solution for this, but you can still choose your startup drive by:
- Holding down the Option key during boot (or Alt for non-Apple keyboards).
- Intel users only: Install the rEFIt boot manager for better control of the boot process.
- Using the command line utility bless (see man bless for more information)
If you have any information on a pretty way of solving this issue, I'd love to hear about it.

Sources:
ntfs-3g 1.2812 (patched)
ntfsprogs 1.13.1
fuse_wait.c
ntfs-3g_daemon.c

NTFS-3G 1.2712

2008-07-15T07:59:00.005+02:00

Information on what's new in this version of NTFS-3G can be found at the NTFS-3G release page.

There are no changes in the Mac OS X specific components for this release. See earlier blog posts for previous changes.

Download NTFS-3G 1.2712 [stable]
Download NTFS-3G 1.2712 [ublio] (patched for improved performance)

Packaging, patching, some OS X-related development and testing has been done by Catacombae Software (i.e. myself).

Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4/10.5, a PowerPC or Intel computer, MacFUSE 1.3 or later installed (1.7 recommended).
This package has been tested with OS X 10.4.11/Intel and OS X 10.5.4/Intel.

Known issues:

Files with filenames created in Windows containing international characters with accents, umlauts and similar dots and lines, or filenames with korean characters might seem unreadable in the Finder. This is because Finder apparently expects all filenames to appear in unicode decomposed form, while NTFS allows both composed and decomposed form filenames. This issue is hard to solve in a pretty way, but you should still be able to access these files when using the Terminal. For me, copying the affected files to a HFS+ drive using the command "cp" worked fine.

After installing ntfs-3g, all NTFS drives will disappear from the "Startup Disk" preference pane. Disabling or uninstalling ntfs-3g brings them back. I don't have a solution for this, but you can still choose your startup drive by:
- Holding down the Option key during boot (or Alt for non-Apple keyboards).
- Intel users only: Install the rEFIt boot manager for better control of the boot process.
- Using the command line utility bless (see man bless for more information)
If you have any information on a pretty way of solving this issue, I'd love to hear about it.

Sources:
ntfs-3g 1.2712 (patched)
ntfsprogs 1.13.1
fuse_wait.c
ntfs-3g_daemon.c

NTFS-3G 1.2531

2008-05-30T07:35:00.006+02:00

Information on what's new in this version of NTFS-3G can be found at the NTFS-3G release page.

Changes on the Mac OS X side:

This release includes a workaround for the bug where ntfs-3g hangs at shutdown/restart (see the previous release for details), delaying system shutdown by 30 seconds and endangering the integrity of the affected NTFS file systems (especially with the ublio build). The workaround consists of a small program, ntfs-3g_daemon which unmounts all ntfs-3g file systems at shutdown. In order to ensure that ntfs-3g doesn't get the shutdown signal before the daemon (which will result in a lockup), signal handlers for ntfs-3g have been disabled completely. This should be considered a temporary solution, as there's still a bug to fix somewhere (in ntfs-3g or MacFUSE... not sure yet).
You will thus see a new process in your process list called ntfs-3g_daemon. Don't terminate this process, or your ntfs file systems will be unmounted.
Please report on how well this workaround works for you.

Partitions marked with any of the FAT partition types (FAT16, FAT32, FAT12) are now probed for NTFS file systems in case Windows has corrupted the partition tables. This is apparently common, and Windows doesn't seem to mind that a partition marked as FAT contains an NTFS file system.

Small bugfix related to ntfslabel returning unexpected values for valid file systems.

Download NTFS-3G 1.2531 [stable]
Download NTFS-3G 1.2531 [ublio] (patched for improved performance)

Packaging, patching, some OS X-related development and testing has been done by Catacombae Software (i.e. myself).

Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4/10.5, a PowerPC or Intel computer, MacFUSE 1.3 or later installed (1.5 recommended).
This package has been tested with OS X 10.4.11/Intel and OS X 10.5.3/Intel.

Known issues:

Files with filenames created in Windows containing international characters with accents, umlauts and similar dots and lines, or filenames with korean characters might seem unreadable in the Finder. This is because Finder apparently expects all filenames to appear in unicode decomposed form, while NTFS allows both composed and decomposed form filenames. This issue is hard to solve in a pretty way, but you should still be able to access these files when using the Terminal. For me, copying the affected files to a HFS+ drive using the command "cp" worked fine.

After installing ntfs-3g, all NTFS drives will disappear from the "Startup Disk" preference pane. Uninstalling ntfs-3g brings them back. I don't know any workaround or solution for this. Please investigate this issue if you want to help.

Sources:
ntfs-3g 1.2531 (patched)
ntfsprogs 1.13.1
fuse_wait.c
ntfs-3g_daemon.c

NTFS-3G 1.2506

2008-05-07T06:45:00.014+02:00

Information on what's new in this version of NTFS-3G can be found at the NTFS-3G release page.

Changes on the Mac OS X side:

The 'local' option is now used in OS X 10.4, making NTFS-3G mounted hard drives appear as internal drives instead of network drives. The MacFUSE bug that made me disable this option in the first place has apparently been fixed since 1.1.x.

Download NTFS-3G 1.2506 [stable]
Download NTFS-3G 1.2506 [ublio] (patched for improved performance)

Packaging, patching, some OS X-related development and testing has been done by Catacombae Software (i.e. myself).

Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4/10.5, a PowerPC or Intel computer, MacFUSE 1.3 or later installed (1.5 recommended).
This package has been tested with OS X 10.4.11/Intel and OS X 10.5.2/Intel.

Known issues:

[serious] Upon shutdown of the system, ntfs-3g fails to unmount properly in reaction to the "terminate" signal that it receives. This means there could be data loss or file system corruption, especially with the ublio build, when shutting down the system without first unmounting all ntfs-3g volumes. It also means that shutting down / restarting the system takes an extra 30 seconds. A solution is being worked on, but in the meantime please remember to unmount ntfs-3g volumes before shutting down or restarting Mac OS X. You could also try ugsasaki's workaround, found among the comments here (I haven't tried it myself).

Files with filenames created in Windows containing international characters with accents, umlauts and similar dots and lines, or filenames with korean characters might seem unreadable in the Finder. This is because Finder apparently expects all filenames to appear in unicode decomposed form, while NTFS allows both composed and decomposed form filenames. This issue is hard to solve in a pretty way, but you should still be able to access these files when using the Terminal. For me, copying the affected files to a HFS+ drive using the command "cp" worked fine.

After installing ntfs-3g, all NTFS drives will disappear from the "Startup Disk" preference pane. Uninstalling ntfs-3g brings them back. I don't know any workaround or solution for this. Please investigate this issue if you want to help.

Sources:
ntfs-3g 1.2506 (patched)
ntfsprogs 1.13.1
fuse_wait.c

NTFS-3G 1.2310

2008-03-22T03:10:00.006+01:00

Information on what's new in ntfs-3g can be found at the NTFS-3G release page.

There's nothing new on the OS X side.

I'm travelling a lot right now, and I seldom have time to sit down and work on NTFS-3G.
If you feel that you would like to help keeping the package updated when new ntfs-3g versions come out, please contact me.

Download NTFS-3G 1.2310 [stable]
Download NTFS-3G 1.2310 [ublio]
(packaging by catacombae)
Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4/10.5, a PowerPC or Intel computer, MacFUSE 1.3 or later installed.
This package has been tested with OS X 10.4.11/Intel and OS X 10.5.2/Intel.

Sources:
ntfs-3g 1.2310 (patched)
ntfsprogs 1.13.1
fuse_wait.c

NTFS-3G 1.2216

2008-02-21T17:01:00.008+01:00

Information on what's new in ntfs-3g can be found at the NTFS-3G release page.

The only OS X-specific change for this release is how the new dialog boxes appear when a mount has failed. The new method will hopefully not block the Finder (I have had reports on the Finder locking up with inconsistent NTFS drives, though I haven't been able to confirm it), or make the startup screen go nuts after displaying an error message before login.

Download NTFS-3G 1.2216 [stable]
Download NTFS-3G 1.2216 [ublio]
(packaging by catacombae)
Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4/10.5, a PowerPC or Intel computer, MacFUSE 1.3 or later installed.
This package has been tested with OS X 10.4.11/Intel and OS X 10.5.2/Intel.

Sources:
ntfs-3g 1.2216 (patched)
ntfsprogs 1.13.1
fuse_wait.c

NTFS-3G 1.2129

2008-01-30T21:00:00.003+01:00

Time for a new release. Information on what's new in ntfs-3g can be found at the NTFS-3G release page.

There are a few changes specific to the OS X package:

More reliable probing due to the new ntfs-3g.probe utility, included in the main ntfs-3g source tree.

Graphical user feedback when a mount operation does not succeed through a Finder dialog box.

Ability to turn off the UBLIO caching layer for individual drives. This is done by creating a file called ".ntfs-noublio" in the directory ".NTFS-3G" at the root of the NTFS drive.

Errors are always logged to the log file (/var/log/ntfs-3g.log). Debug logging can be turned on as an additional option.

All "control files" (.ntfs-readonly, .ntfs-locale and .ntfs-noublio) have been consolidated to a new ".NTFS-3G" subdirectory under the root of the drive. If you depend on these control files, please move them manually to it's new location before installing this version of the package.

Download NTFS-3G 1.2129 [stable]
Download NTFS-3G 1.2129 [ublio]
(packaging by catacombae)
Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4/10.5, a PowerPC or Intel computer, MacFUSE 1.1 or later installed.
This package has been tested with OS X 10.4.11/Intel and OS X 10.5.1/Intel.

Sources:
ntfs-3g 1.2129 (patched)
ntfsprogs 1.13.1
fuse_wait.c

NTFS-3G 1.1120

2007-11-24T15:53:00.003+01:00

You can read about what's new in this release at the official NTFS-3G release page.
There's nothing new that's Mac-specific. The scripts and patches are pretty much the same as in the previous release.
The stable build is still the preferred download. The extra speed offered in the ublio build is suspected to come at a price of slight data corruption at times, but I can't confirm it as I can't reproduce it. There is a possibility that those reports may have had other causes like faulty hardware.

Download NTFS-3G 1.1120 [stable]
Download NTFS-3G 1.1120 [ublio]
(packaging by catacombae)
Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4/10.5, a PowerPC or Intel computer, MacFUSE 0.4.0 or 1.1 installed (MacFUSE 1.0.0 doesn't work well with this package... upgrade to 1.1).
This package has been tested with OS X 10.4.11/Intel and OS X 10.5.1/Intel.

If you're having problems with this package, please do the following before reporting it:

Check if the previous version of the package works better for you.

Check that the NTFS drive you're trying to mount has been cleanly unmounted in Windows, using "Safe remove hardware". If you just "pull the plug" the drive won't mount with NTFS-3G.

Check that the NTFS drive is error free, using chkdsk.

Collect system specifications, such as OS version, processor type (Intel/PowerPC), drive type (internal/USB/FireWire) etc. before submitting a problem report.

This information is essential to solve the problem. Just writing "It doesn't work, you suck." doesn't help a bit.

This build includes:
ntfs-3g 1.1120 (patched)
ntfsprogs 1.13.1

NTFS-3G 1.1104

2007-11-05T21:18:00.003+01:00

Here comes the latest version of NTFS-3G for OS X.
This time I'm releasing two versions of the package: one "stable" build with no patches activated (except for some OS X specific ones), and one ublio build, which includes the ublio user space caching layer for performance enchancements.

The stable build is built only from code that have been tested extensively through the ntfs-3g testing process. The ublio build contains external code that offers performance enhancements, but that hasn't been put through the same extensive testing process, and thus is more likely to contain bugs.
When using the ublio build it is extremely important that you make sure that you unmount disks cleanly before removing them from the system.

Download NTFS-3G 1.1104 [stable]
Download NTFS-3G 1.1104 [ublio]
(packaging by catacombae)
Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4/10.5, a PowerPC or Intel computer, MacFUSE 0.4.0 or 1.1 installed (MacFUSE 1.0.0 doesn't work well with this package... upgrade to 1.1).

Other changes for this build:

Added an option to disable NTFS-3G through a script in the "Tools" directory, allowing you to switch between the internal NTFS driver and NTFS-3G.

Made the package more compatible with MacFUSE 1.0.0 and thus Leopard. Full compatibility can't be achieved due to an incompatibility issue between MacFUSE and NTFS-3G that I hope will be resolved in the next MacFUSE release.

This build includes:
ntfs-3g 1.1104 (patched)
ntfsprogs 1.13.1

NTFS-3G 1.1004 with ublio patches

2007-10-27T19:33:00.002+02:00

After a lot of testing and building I have now decided to release an experimental release of NTFS-3G for Mac OS X with caching support through the ublio user space caching layer. This will be especially relevant for people with USB2 external hard disks, where performance increases of about 1500% can be expected.

This package release can be labeled experimental, which means that it's not verified to be stable, and there may be issues remaining to be solved. If you want a stable release, fetch NTFS-3G 1.1004 Update 2.

Note that caching isn't enabled by default, but needs to be enabled by executing the script "Tools/Enable file system caching.command", which can be found in the disk image.

Before enabling caching, you have to be aware of a few things:
1. When using the caching layer, NOBODY SHOULD EVER REMOVE EXTERNAL DISKS IF NTFS-3G IS STILL RUNNING. You always have to eject the disk properly through the eject button in the Finder or through Disk Utility, or else you risk losing data. (This really applies to all cached file systems, so you should make this a common practice.)
2. Even though NTFS-3G is extremely well tested, the ublio patch is not included in this testing process. Thus you cannot expect the same quality, and even though I have tested the package and found no issues that can be effectively traced to ublio, you should be cautious in an environment with important data. The ublio patch is used frequently in FreeBSD with NTFS-3G.

Download NTFS-3G 1.1004 (Update 4, experimental) (package by catacombae)
Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4, a PowerPC or Intel computer, MacFUSE 0.4.0 installed (currently NOT WORKING with MacFUSE 1.0.0).

Summary of changes for NTFS-3G 1.1004 Update 3:

Dramatic performance enhancements by adding caching support through the ublio layer.
The ".ntfs-locale" trick should not be needed anymore for most people, as NTFS-3G now defaults to a reasonable locale (en_US.UTF-8).
Added scripts for disabling and enabling ublio caching and debug logging.

Summary of changes for NTFS-3G 1.1004 Update 4:

Disabled caching by default, so people can choose if they want it enabled or not.
Hopefully fixed a bug where some users got their mount points prepended by "-n".

Note: I really need your feedback for this version! If you install it and it doesn't work, don't hesitate to tell me about it by writing a comment or sending me an email (address can be found at my regular site). If it does work, I'd like to hear about that as well, especially if you're on a PowerPC Mac.

The ublio-patched source code for ntfs-3g 1.1004 is available here.
The source code for ntfsprogs 1.13.1 is available here.

NTFS-3G 1.1004 package for Mac OS X

2007-10-05T13:06:00.002+02:00

That's right.. the package has been updated to NTFS-3G 1.1004. This version supposedly fixes an issue with file corruption when dealing with sparse files.
ntfsprogs 1.13.1 (from http://www.linux-ntfs.org) is also included. The package structure has been slightly altered so it will require a reboot after install.

Download NTFS-3G 1.1004 (Update 2) (package by catacombae)
Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4, a PowerPC or Intel computer, MacFUSE 0.4.0 (or later) installed.

Changes for Update 1: Changed ntfsprogs back to 1.13.1 from 2.0.0 because of lockup issues with unclean/hibernated NTFS file systems tracked to ntfsprogs.
Changes for Update 2: Bugfix for fuse_wait. It didn't return the proper exit code when the mount operation failed. This confused OS X, but it should be fixed now.

Note: I'm still unable to test the package on PowerPC systems, but it will probably work. Somebody intrested in donating old PPC hardware?

The source code for ntfs-3g 1.1004 is available here.
The source code for ntfsprogs 1.13.1 is available here.

Troubleshooting / FAQ

2007-09-24T19:17:00.000+02:00

Problem: My partition doesn't mount at all, even though it works in Windows!
Possible cause: Your partition wasn't cleanly unmounted in Windows, because you didn't use "Safely remove hardware" before unplugging your removable drive. Alternatively, you're trying to read a drive which has been left in a hibernated state (you put Windows in hibernation mode instead of doing a complete shut down).

Problem: My partition doesn't mount automatically!
Possible cause: Your partition is incorrectly marked as another file system in your partition table. This can happen if you use mkntfs on an existing partition without changing file system type in the partition table. To reformat other file systems as NTFS volumes in OS X, use the command line tool diskutil with the verb eraseVolume. The format argument will be NTFS-3G. See man diskutil for usage info.

Problem: Filenames with international characters are displayed incorrectly!
Possible cause: You haven't created the file ".ntfs-locale" in the root of the operating system, describing how to interpret international characters. This file is read by this package's mount utility script before mounting it to determine the correct parameters. If you type the command "locale -a" in the Terminal you will get a list of all locales available on your system. One of these should be typed into the .ntfs-locale file. (Note that the file will need to be called ".ntfs-locale" and NOT for example ".ntfs-locale.txt")

Problem: NTFS-3G is damn slow!
Possible cause: Is it really the connection to your drive that's slow? (For example a USB2 drive running in USB 1.1 mode...)
Anyway, NTFS-3G is currently noticeably slower compared to the kernel mode drivers that it competes with. I'm looking into adding some caching patches to speed things up.
I get around 10-15 MiB/s when copying files to and from my SATA drive. You shouldn't expect more than that at the moment.
Update: I can confirm that NTFS-3G is actually damn slow with USB2 drives. IDE/SATA drives work better, Firewire performance is unknown (if you have a FW drive, you could report your performance figures in the comments to this thread)...

Problem: NTFS-3G doesn't react properly to SIGTERM and thus slows down shutdown of the computer!
Possible cause: There is something that I don't understand with how NTFS-3G reacts in these situations. shadowofged, who provided the previous hazzle free package for NTFS-3G, solved the problem (or tried to... I'm not sure if it really worked on my computer) by installing a daemon listening to SIGTERM, and when activated automatically unmounted all MacFUSE file systems. This daemon isn't released as open source software, but I might rewrite it in the future as open source code, if the problem gets too annoying.

Question: How do I uninstall the previous NTFS-3G package (or whatever package...) that I have installed?
Solution: You probably don't even have to. The package is upgradable, so if you install the package over a previous version all of the old files that aren't being used by the new package are automatically removed. If you still need to remove some package from your system, you can fetch this universal package removal script, which lets you type the name of a package, and then reads the contents of the package receipt and removes all files associated with the package (including the receipt).
(Note that if you're trying to remove a previous package called "NTFS-3G", like an older version, the uninstall script packaged within the current NTFS-3G package will effectively remove the old package if you run it before you install the current one. So in that case there's no need for the universal script...)

[This post will be updated as new problems and solutions are collected.]

NTFS-3G 1.913 package for Mac OS X

2007-09-14T22:42:00.001+02:00

A new revision of my package including the latest version of NTFS-3G.
This revision throws out shadowofged's binaries, which were probably not so legal to distribute anyway. I have written a replacement for shadowofged's fuse_wait utility, which is included in the package.

Download NTFS-3G 1.913 (package by catacombae)
Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4, a PowerPC or Intel computer, MacFUSE 0.4.0 (or later) installed.

The source code for fuse_wait is here. It is distributed under the General Public License version 2.

Note: Even though the binaries are built as universal binaries ("fat" binaries), I have had no chance to test them out on a PowerPC machine, so I really don't know if it works or not. You try it...

The source code for ntfs-3g 1.913 is available here.
The source code for ntfsprogs 1.13.1 is available here.

NTFS-3G 1.826 for Mac OS X with automount

2007-09-10T13:46:00.000+02:00

By combining shadowofged's package with the one available at http://www.daniel-johnson.org I forged a new, easy to install package for NTFS-3G.
~~Download NTFS-3G 1.826~~ (package by catacombae)

Please comment on how usable this package is. It works extremely well for me on my two OS X installs, but it's totally untested on other systems than Mac OS X 10.4.10 on the Intel architecture.

First post...

2007-09-08T08:07:00.001+02:00

I started this blog as a reaction to the fact that I could not find any good, updated packages for installing ntfs-3g, the open source userspace NTFS driver, onto an OS X machine with no extra work for making NTFS volumes automount.
I'll probably terminate it as soon as an official hazzle-free package appears. (If there is one out there that I don't know about, please contact me so I can check it out)

In this post, I'd like to talk about my current setup:
To install NTFS-3G I use the installers and the scripts from the now defunct project at shadowofged's blog . As I only have the file "NTFS-3G 1.417 (Full).dmg" in my possession (I'm not sure about what rights I have to distribute it, so I won't), I use it to install the package. This sets up a fully working NTFS-3G environment with automatic mounting of NTFS file systems with the 3G driver, though with an older version.

I then download the precompiled NTFS-3G package from http://www.daniel-johnson.org/ and extract the binaries and copy them over the existing ones:


mkntfs -> /usr/local/bin/mkntfs
ntfs-3g -> /usr/local/bin/ntfs-3g
ntfscat -> /usr/local/bin/ntfscat
ntfsclone -> /usr/local/bin/ntfsclone
ntfscluster -> /usr/local/bin/ntfscluster
ntfscmp -> /usr/local/bin/ntfscmp
ntfscp -> /usr/local/bin/ntfscp
ntfsfix -> /usr/local/bin/ntfsfix
ntfsinfo -> /usr/local/bin/ntfsinfo
ntfslabel -> /usr/local/bin/ntfslabel
ntfsls -> /usr/local/bin/ntfsls
ntfsresize -> /usr/local/bin/ntfsresize
ntfsundelete -> /usr/local/bin/ntfsundelete
libntfs.9.0.0.dylib -> /usr/local/lib/libntfs.9.0.0.dylib
libntfs.9.dylib -> /usr/local/lib/libntfs.9.dylib

After this, I have a very nice, automounting setup of the latest NTFS-3G version.

Note that I'm no NTFS-3G internal, and know nothing of the inner workings of NTFS-3G. I'm just a Mac user that likes to have access to the latest and greatest versions of NTFS-3G, in order to gain read/write access to my NTFS Boot Camp partition.