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Paragon Software

Paragon Software: building bridges between your Mac and Windows

Paragon Software

Building Bridges Between Your Mac and Windows

As you probably know, or not the file system format on Mac and PC are different. This is why you are having issues transferring data from your Mac to your friend’s USB stick or external hard-drive. On Mac, the file system format is called HFS, whereas on PC it’s called NTFS. NTFS has no support by Apple. So, how do you access NTFS from a Mac computer?

The answer is Paragon software. Unfortunately, the program is not free, but it can solve your issues. You can download it here.

According to Paragon, NTFS for Mac OS X is a low-level file system driver, specially developed to bridge the incompatibility of Windows and Mac OS X. It does so by providing full read/write access to any version of the NTFS file system (Windows NT 4.0, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista) under Mac OS X. Based on the Paragon UFSD (Universal File System Driver) technology, the driver provides fast and transparent access to NTFS partitions on Mac OS X, thus achieving an unprecedented high level of performance (the same as for HFS Plus and in some cases even better). Mac OS X programs can process such partitions without any restrictions, and can also browse contents, read and modify files, copy and create new files and folders, etc.

Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X comes in one universal binary edition, including a standard DMG disk image with an installation package to automatically substitute the Mac OS X default driver (read only) for Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X.

According to many users’ reviews, this product does exactly what it claims. When you install NTFS, you will be able to begin working with NTFS disk drives. Since many users have a number of Windows drives, this installation lets them access all the drives from their Macintosh without having to change the format. Some users state that while they continue to need to share drives between Mac and Windows computers, FAT32 won’t allow the large file sizes that the user sometimes encounters. However, NTFS for Mac has solved the problem.

The product installs as a background utility, so once it is installed you never have to think about it again. After installation you will be able to bring large video files back and forth between clients that work on Windows or Mac. It is a necessary product in order to write files larger than 5 gigs that must be accessible by both Windows and Mac computers.

Finally, keep in mind, that when you buy Paragon NTFS to support the boot camp partition on your Mac, it will work like a charm for Tiger or Leopard. It will allow you to access to the boot camp partition so you don’t have to worry about where your files are, and won’t have to reboot just to access one of them. However, once you move to Snow Leopard, you will be required to upgrade to the latest version. Paragon offers a discount upgrade in this case. If you need access to files on a dual boot Mac, this is the way to go, as it is inexpensive and fully supported.