When you plug a drive that's been formatted for Mac into a Windows PC, you may find that it isn't readable. This is because Mac uses the HFS+ format natively, whereas Windows uses ExFAT or NTFS. One simple way to make the drive readable on both platforms is to format it to ExFAT, which both operating systems can understand. This will erase all contents on the disk, however, so. This article contains details of the latest OneDrive releases for Windows, Mac, Android, iOS and the Store app for Windows 10 devices. Release notes are included only for builds that reach Production. Read more about The OneDrive sync app update process.
If you've switched to the Mac, welcome aboard. Your old external Windows PC drive will work great on the Mac. Apple has built OS X Yosemite and some previous OS X releases with the ability to read from those disks just fine. If you're using such a drive and you'd like to write new data to them, you'll find you can't unless you add new software. Fortunately, you don't have to spend a dime.
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One option is to back up your old Windows external drive (using Time Machine or another method). Reformat the drive using Apple's Disk Utility software and the company's HFS+ file system instead. Then you can restore the backed up data to the drive.
Even if the backed up and restored files originally came from a PC, they'll be stored on the drive using a file system the Mac fully understands. That way the drive will be fully Mac-compatible without any need for you to modify the operating system of the Mac to get it to work properly.
Obviously that solution doesn't work for everyone. Maybe the drive you're using has to be used with a PC occasionally. Whatever the case, the good news is that it's not a show-stopper: There are a few utilities out there that will enable Macs to write to mounted NTFS volumes.
Tuxera's NTFS for Mac is one of the best ways to do it. It uses smart caching to keep data transfer as fast as possible and works with every OS X version since 10.4 (Tiger). NTFS for Mac costs $31, and you can download a demo first to see how it does.
Paragon Software's NTFS for Mac 12 is another excellent choice. It includes several additional utilities for people who need to tinker or repair, to enable you to format drives with NTFS, check NTFS partition integrity, fix errors, and more. NTFS for Mac costs $19.95.
If you're a DIYer and you'd like to go the free route, you'll find a Sourceforge project called NativeNTFS-OSX that gets the job done. NativeNTFS isn't for rookies: It's a bash script that needs to run from the Terminal command line and requires you to have root (administrator) access to your computer.
An easier way to go is to download OS X Fuse, a third-party software tool that extends the Mac's file system capabilities. Follow the directions on the OS X Fuse website to download and configure the software. Follow the instructions to download NTFS-3G for Mac OS X, whose development seems stopped right now but still works in Yosemite. Once OS X Fuse and NTFS-3G are installed, your Mac should be able to read and write to NTFS disks just fine.
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When I first got my Mac, the very first problem I had was trying to figure out why I couldn’t write anything to my Windows formatted external hard drive. Turns out Macs don’t natively allow writing to a drive that’s formatted as NTFS (New Technology File System), which is the format that Windows uses.
There are a few options out there to get your Mac to play nicely with the NTFS format. A couple are to use the software Parallels, Tuxera or NTFS-3G.
A quick run down of the 3 will show that Parallels is the most expensive and the most feature extensive. Tuxera is right in the middle, affordable and works great. NTFS-3G is a free solution, however I personally have never been able to get it working properly. Also after browsing around I found a lot of mixed reviews of NTFS-3G, some saying it works great other saying the opposite. Give it a shot though if you want, I mean free and works on Linux, Mac OS X, OpenSolaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, QNX, Windows and Haiku.
For the purpose of this tutorial I will use Tuxera as it is my favourite of the three as well as the one I currently use.
Tuxera NTFS for Mac is a very simple to setup app. It resides in the System Preferences, where it can be easily enabled, disabled or configured. When you install it, you will have to restart your computer to finalize the installation. Upon restarting, you should go to System Preferences -> Tuxera and look over the options to make sure everything is set up the way you want it (check the picture above to see options). If you’re unsure you can simply leave it as it is, and it should work just fine. I have it set to all the default options and it works great for me.
Another thing I like about Tuxera, is once installed you can forget about it. It’ll do all the work in the background and not bug you about this and that, it just works.
Windows Read Mac Drive Apps
Parallels is a more than a simple way of writing to an NTFS formatted drive however. It allows you to run Windows and Mac simultaneously. So if you came here looking for more than a simple way to write to your Windows NTFS drives, then you should check out Parallels. Read more about Parallels here: Run all Windows programs on Mac OS X with Parallels
Windows Read Mac Drive App Download
If you already have another NTFS application installed, you need to disable or uninstall it before installing Tuxera, or it could conflict with it.
Below are the links to all 3
Tuxera Homepage – 15 day Trial/Buy
Windows Read Mac Drive Application
Parallels Homepage – 14 day Trial/Buy