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MacFuse + NTFS-3G: Reading and Writing NTFS Partitions on Mac OS X

Introduction

Even with the release of Leopard (10.5), everyone thought they would have NTFS write support. We had already missed out on user-friendly native ZFS...

In short, if you want to be able to write to NTFS partitions, you need to install MacFuse and NTFS-3G. Here's how to proceed.

Prerequisites

Installation

It's fairly simple - download the MacPorts and MacFuse packages and install them. For the rest, everything is on the Leopard DVD.

Configuration

MacPorts

If this is your first MacPorts installation, run this command:

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export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH

Then we'll install what we need. But first, let's get the MacPorts package list:

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sudo port -d selfupdate

Next, install pkgconfig and ntfs-3g:

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sudo port install pkgconfig ntfs-3g

Usage

If you have Bootcamp installed or if your NTFS partition is already mounted, check the corresponding device using the "df" command:

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mac% df
Filesystem    512-blocks     Used Available Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2   127664128 60996656  66155472    48%    /
devfs                212      212         0   100%    /dev
fdesc                  2        2         0   100%    /dev
map -hosts             0        0         0   100%    /net
map auto_home          0        0         0   100%    /home
/dev/disk0s3    67035608 28905504  38130104    44%    /Volumes/Untitled

Here, /dev/disk0s3 corresponds to Windows. So I'll unmount the partition:

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sudo umount /Volumes/Untitled

Next, I need to create a folder called Vista for example in Volumes, then mount my device in this folder:

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sudo mkdir /Volumes/Vista
sudo ntfs-3g /dev/disk0s3 /Volumes/Vista -o ping_diskarb,volname="Vista"

Then if you run df, it should appear and you can now access it :-)

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mac% df
Filesystem    512-blocks     Used Available Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2   127664128 60997024  66155104    48%    /
devfs                223      223         0   100%    /dev
fdesc                  2        2         0   100%    /dev
map -hosts             0        0         0   100%    /net
map auto_home          0        0         0   100%    /home
/dev/disk0s3    67035608 28905504  38130104    44%    /Volumes/Vista