We have our Mac computer and we want to write to NTFS disk, but we can’t because we don’t have read and write permissions. This is because, by default, the Mac hard drive is formatted as Mac OS Plus.
Mac OS computers are capable of reading and writing FAT and exFAT because these are universal formats. And sometimes they can read NTFS disks, but we can’t write over files that have been formatted NTFS in Windows.
What You Should Know About NTFS Disks
NTFS stands for New Technology File System, and it is a Windows NT file system. It is based on the IBM / Microsoft HPFS file system, a system suitable for the large partitions required on workstations.
Drivers such as NTFS-3G have been developed with reverse engineering and are applied to the file system. They provide GNU / Linux, Solaris, MacOSX or BSD operating systems with full support for reading and writing to NTFS partitions.
NTFS is a file system generally used by Windows NT to store and retrieve files from a hard drive at the same time. It is the equivalent of Windows 95 and HPFS and the following general characteristics of NTFS can be mentioned:
- Supports large files.
- Integrated file compression.
- Supports names that are in Unicode. Use a b-tree directory to locate the grouped files.
Secure data on a removable and fixed disk.
This format gives you space solutions for files with a larger size that allows other formats like FAT32.
One drawback they have is that it requires an amount of space on the hard disk, which must have more than 400 MiB available. We have briefly explained what NTFS is and now we will show you how to write to NTFS disk on Mac.
How to write to NTFS disk on Mac that do not have read and write permission
When you need to write NTFS on your Mac, we will show you three ways to do it and they are:
- Apple’s experimental NTFS write support. Mac brings experimental media that is used for writing to NTFS disk drives. The problem is that by default it has been disabled and to enable it you need to mess up your terminal.
With experimental support, there is no guarantee that it will work properly. This could cause problems with the NTFS file system. - Using paid third-party drivers. There are some third-party drivers that can be installed. These can be used on the Mac device and are easy to install. The advantage they offer is that they give better performance to your Mac computer.
The disadvantage is that they are not free, and you must pay a price for the use of this type of third-party driver. - Using third-party drivers that are free. These drivers can be installed on your Mac computer. It will allow you to write support, but the disadvantage is that they are slower than paid drivers.
- When it comes to installing these free drivers, it is more complicated when the Mac has System Integrity Protection. Also, the free drivers automatically mount the NTFS on a read and write, and are considered a security risk for the computer.
We have shown you in a simple way what you must do to write to NTFS disk on Mac. The information can be useful when you do not have read and write permissions.
There are programs that allow you to make partitions in different formats to your hard drive in the operating system of your Mac, so you can see and choose the most recommended to use today.
We are happy to help you solve the problems that arise when you use your Mac computer. Keep visiting our page to continue learning other topics that interest you.