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gumbyx84

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 7, 2008
491
0
My Mac partition recently got corrupted to the point of needing a fresh install. I just starting installing my utilities again and downloaded the newest version of NTFS-3G. While doing this, I noticed that there was a "professional" version of NTFS-3G sold by Tuxera (who makes NTFS-3G). I tried to find information comparing the two, but can't; Even on their own website.

Does anyone know what the major differences between them are? Is worth the $31 for a normal user (meaning someone who has a BootCamp partition, but doesn't always copy to and from it)?

PS If you have used NTFS-3G, what "mode" do you use: Cached (UBLIO) mode or uncached mode?
 

MisterMe

macrumors G4
Jul 17, 2002
10,709
69
USA
NTFS-3G is free.
NTFS-3G works, even allowing you to partition NTFS volumes with your Mac.
What more do you want?
 

gumbyx84

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 7, 2008
491
0
NTFS-3G is free.
NTFS-3G works, even allowing you to partition NTFS volumes with your Mac.
What more do you want?

Very much not useful. What are the differences between them? I doubt Tuxera just decided to charge people and companies for the free driver.
 

Mal

macrumors 603
Jan 6, 2002
6,252
18
Orlando
The most I could find was this:

Our open source products focus on the widest possible compatibility with general PC hardware. They come with basic features. We also sell commercial, technically improved and optimized versions of our drivers as Tuxera NTFS for Embedded Systems. The embedded offering is designed for those who strive for maximum performance with the best possible reliability in demanding environments. Additionally, the improved and optimized driver is packaged into Tuxera NTFS for Mac end-user product.

Sounds pretty vague to me. I'd just use the free version.

jW
 

gumbyx84

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 7, 2008
491
0
No. Tuxera decided to buy NTFS-3G.

OK, I was wrong. That still doesn't answer my question about what the difference is between the two different drivers, if any. I highly doubt they are selling a product that is exactly the same as the free version. At least Mal tried to help me out.

What's a normal user?
..... did you read my post at all?

Is worth the $31 for a normal user (meaning someone who has a BootCamp partition, but doesn't always copy to and from it)?

PS Mal: Like your portrait :)
 

jared_kipe

macrumors 68030
Dec 8, 2003
2,967
1
Seattle
Best advice I can give you.

Just ignore people who don't "help" you to your liking.
Don't tell them how much they didn't "help" you.
 

deadwulfe

macrumors 6502a
Feb 18, 2010
737
3
At least Mal tried to help me out.

No, MisterMe tried to help you out, too. However, you decided to be an Atari Sega Saturn about it and bite his head off for it. I swear people like you that think everyone on this board are a bunch of answering monkeys make me not even want to come here and try to help people with problems.

If being told one of the solutions is free and works doesn't help out someone who has a BootCamp partition, but doesn't always copy to and from it, is just going to piss you off then just tell us the answer you want to hear from us.

Free & works versus $31 and is advertised for commercial use. Close your mouthful of attitude long enough to think about it and maybe you can be nice enough to get some more responses.

You get more for a teaspoon of honey than a pound of spice.
 

gumbyx84

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 7, 2008
491
0
No, MisterMe tried to help you out, too. However, you decided to be an Atari Sega Saturn about it and bite his head off for it.

If being told one of the solutions is free and works doesn't help out someone who has a BootCamp partition, but doesn't always copy to and from it, then just tell us the answer you want to hear from us.

Free & works versus $31 and is advertised for commercial use. Close your mouthful of attitude long enough to think about it and maybe you can be nice enough to get some more responses.

You get more for a teaspoon of honey than a pound of spice.

Thanks but no thanks for the lecture. You might want to re-read your own post and see that you have a bit of an attitude yourself.

I did not bite anyone's head off. He didn't give me a real answer. I know one if free and the other is not. They say that on the company site. The license is for an IMPROVED version of the driver for personal or commercial use. All I want to know is if anyone knows if the improvement is worth the money. Heck, it might be the exact same thing and I could be wrong in saying they are different. MisterMe did not make a comparison. He told me to use the free version, which is not what I asked. All I told him was his advice was not really useful.

As for my comment towards you: Yes I came across a bit harsh. I will apologize for that. I was having a bad day at work and when I saw your post, it rubbed me the wrong way. However, you cannot deny that the answer to your question was in my original post.

ATM it looks like I am better of just emailing the company directly so I can get the answer I'm looking for. If anyone can answer my question before I email them, please do. It would be appreciated.
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,419
43,307
I was wondering the same thing myself. I went to download ntfs-3g and I found out there's a paid version and a free version. From what I found or rather didn't find. I the free version has to be compiled and installed. I did not find an installer. I could be wrong but the links pointed me to the source code :/
 

MisterMe

macrumors G4
Jul 17, 2002
10,709
69
USA
... I the free version has to be compiled and installed. I did not find an installer. I could be wrong but the links pointed me to the source code :/
Huh? NTFS-3G is available for download as both an installer and as source code on this web page. NTFS-3G is opensource and free. Tuxera on occasion makes Tuxera NTFS for Mac available free of charge for short periods.
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,419
43,307
Huh? NTFS-3G is available for download as both an installer and as source code on this web page. NTFS-3G is opensource and free. Tuxera on occasion makes Tuxera NTFS for Mac available free of charge for short periods.

Thanks I looked closer and found the link. I some how got a some area that only provided the source.
 

karthiks

macrumors newbie
Jun 21, 2009
17
0
The difference is in the write speeds. I get 3 MBps with NTFS-3G whereas I get 25 MBps with Tuxera NTFS-3G.

I haven't bought it yet but if someone can direct me to a good enough solution, I am willing to try it.
 

MisterMe

macrumors G4
Jul 17, 2002
10,709
69
USA
...

I haven't bought it yet but if someone can direct me to a good enough solution, I am willing to try it.
That is the choice. AFAIK, there are two commercial NTFS drivers, Paragon's NTFS for Mac® OS X, Tuxera NTFS for Mac, and the opensource NTFS-3G. The commercial solutions are faster. If you mechanically transfer files between Windows and MacOS X a lot, then you may find the commercial solutions to be worth it. If you do so only on occasion, then NTFS-3G may be good enough.
 

Szaka

macrumors newbie
Mar 1, 2009
8
0
No. Tuxera decided to buy NTFS-3G.
No. We are the same people, developing the free and open source NTFS software for OS X, Linux and many other platforms over the past ten years. The company old name was NTFS-3G Technology but we changed it to Tuxera in 2009 because we are developing other file system solutions as well.

In the first eight years we released everything free and as source code. However this was not monetarily sustainable to finance development. To address this, we figured out to develop a premium, value added commercial version of our free software, so we can keep maintaining and give away NTFS-3G free.

Otherwise NTFS-3G would be dead today and the only choice would be Paragon NTFS for about $100. Please check its earlier prices and when there is no competition. Instead today we have three alternatives:

Paragon NTFS: $40
Tuxera NTFS: $32
NTFS-3G: $0

The later two are developed by us, Tuxera.

Contrary to the lower fee, we believe that Tuxera offers a better product quality, interoperability, integration and support wise. The reason we can provide more at lower cost origins from the non-monetary value of the free NTFS-3G. This is why we are committed to keep maintaining and giving it away free in the future as well.

Regards,

Szabolcs Szakacsits
President & Chief Software Architect
Tuxera Inc.
http://tuxera.com
 

milbournosphere

macrumors 6502a
Mar 3, 2009
857
1
San Diego, CA
To address this, we figured out to develop a premium, value added commercial version of our free software, so we can keep maintaining and give away NTFS-3G free.

That's all well and good, but what does the "value added" consist of? So far, all I've managed to learn in this thread is that the paid version is faster in terms of reads/writes. Szaka, since you're high up in the Tuxera food chain, is there any comparison page (or something like it) to stack the features of your paid version up against the free version of your software, or is it as simple as read and write performance? All I can find is this performance page. Is there anything else you can link us to? Thanks for your contribution to this thread, I didn't even know Tuxera and NTFS-3G were linked.
 

hakuryuu

macrumors 6502
Sep 30, 2007
350
6
Lomita, CA
I've been using NTFS-3G for a while now for work. It is sufficient but I do wish it were faster. If Tuxera NTFS is substantially faster I may consider upgrading to that.

And honestly if Tuxera being a lot faster isn't enough of a reason for the OP to figure out which is better for the 'normal' user then I don't know what is. Either you do a lot which requires NTFS and would benefit from the speed or you don't.
 

sup3r1or

macrumors regular
Jun 24, 2010
205
0
Manchester, UK
If you want something faster, I would recommend you Paragon NTFS for mac. I know its not free, but if you are not willing to pay like me, then you know where to find it (pretending I didn't say that)
 

DoFoT9

macrumors P6
Jun 11, 2007
17,586
98
London, United Kingdom
for the people that have both (i assume somebody is around) - what about some benchmarks comparing the 2? on the same computer of course..

i dont think there will be much difference between the 2.

free is always better.
 

DoFoT9

macrumors P6
Jun 11, 2007
17,586
98
London, United Kingdom
I dunno, 3MBps vs 25MBps is quite a difference. If this amounted to typical performance when the two are compared to each other, it'd be worth the money if one was working with NTFS drives frequently.

I ignored that post, as I easily max out my NTFS formatted drive over USB2.0 on all my Macs. Must have been a bad install in that instance.
 

jonathanmorgan

macrumors newbie
Jul 18, 2011
1
0
experience with both

Hi,

Quick note on my experiences with both Paragon and Tuxera. I tried Paragon first, and it failed to mount the first 2 NTFS drives I tried to attach via USB. Once I got a drive mounted, it corrupted the file system when it wrote, so I had to then mount the drive on a Windows machine and chkdsk it to fix it.

I then uninstalled Paragon and installed Tuxera (paid version trial). It mounted all drives just fine, did not corrupt on writes, and I have had no problems since. I routinely backup large files (virtual machine hard drives for VirtualBox and VMWare Fusion) and large sets of files (iTunes libraries) to NTFS drives, and it is quick enough for me, and has been perfectly stable across updates. I did end up paying for the commercial Tuxera driver to take advantage of performance updates and read/write caching, and to support development.

I actually own both, just in case I need the hfs driver that Paragon has, and in case I run into a problem with Tuxera in a time-critical situation, but I have not yet run into such a problem, never use Paragon, bought Tuxera for my wife's Mac, and would recommend Tuxera.

Jon
 
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