Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X Public Beta Testing

Anatoly said:

Dear Forum Visitors,

We just uploaded Beta 2 version that is our first release candidate. Please uninstall the Beta 1 and then install Beta 2. We are looking forward to hearing your feedback.

Dear hagios1972,
I would make partitioning under Mac (created partitions you need) and then format some of them as partitions with HFS file system. The others, that you want to format as NTFS, I would connect to a Windows PC and format them there as partitions with NTFS file system.

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Thanks Anatoly. I have uninstalled Beta 1 and have installed Beta 2. Will let you know any feedback.

I have also uninstalled beta 1, and installed beta 2 without issues. I continue to be able to access NTFS volumes problem free. I wish I had something to report, but the package works so seamlessly, you wouldn't even know Apple hadn't included this capability natively in OS X.

cwa107 said:

I have also uninstalled beta 1, and installed beta 2 without issues. I continue to be able to access NTFS volumes problem free. I wish I had something to report, but the package works so seamlessly, you wouldn't even know Apple hadn't included this capability natively in OS X.

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+1 --robtg

Still no issues. I'll probably do some transfers in the next couple days, and I'll see if there's anything that comes up with that. But so far, so good.

I transferred files from my MacBook HD to my Hitachi 40GB external HD connected via USB and it went smoothly. The 35MB JPEG files transfer speed was 5 seconds and 2.28GB Quicktime movie went for 2min25sec. It worked seamlessly. I did the same thing from external HD to internal HD and it worked fine as well. I then opened the files and there were no problems at all. I have been using the external HD for my Compaq laptop files back up and the MacBook can open all the files without any problem.

using it for a few minutes but seems to work just as it should. being able to write files to NTFS partition is a big improvement as it eliminates a lot of problems I experienced using FAT 32 system on my external hdd's like most annoying problem of not being able to work with files larger than 4GB or when using NTFS partition - not being able to write to it in Os X.
for testing I'm using:
MBP 17'' 2.4 GHz
OS 10.4.10
external USB 500GB WDC My Book Essential Edition Hard Drives (WDG1U5000) reformatted to two partitions (50/50) - one FAT 32 other NTFS
WDC 800JB drive 80GB in ICY Box enclosure to make it external USB drive formatted in one NTFS partition.

UPDATE:

using it for few day now and still everything is ok

update:

still no issues. i'd love to report bugs, but i haven't found one.

same here

No idea what caused this but look!





This is my NTFS drive. It still says theres lots of disk space taken, so what happened!?

Edit: after restart its back to normal.



Edit2: Lately my harddisk has been acting weird, after some time it starts reading and reading and reading but I don't know whats happening. When I restart its fine for a little while but it eventually starts doing it again and never stops. The funny thing is, when this happens, the Mac partition still reads quite quickly but the NTFS partition takes ages to open and browse. Im now going to uninstall the Beta2 drivers to see if its them.

Edit3: Ive now uninstalled the drivers and am playing MP3s from my NTFS drive, no problems yet, but that doesnt mean anything since i cant tell when the problems started.

Edit4: I havent had any problems yet after uninstalling the drivers, so maybe it is a bug...

*bump*

After a few days I still don't have the harddisk problem anymore so that means it was caused by the (beta2) NTFS for Mac drivers.

Had same issue of the reading - discovered it was Spotlight indexing my XP partition.

Those first 2 pictures is a pretty strange anomaly, but A does not = B in this case - a glitch in the system that disappears by re-booting, does not indicate it was this driver because you later un-installed it. Not saying it wasn't caused by them, just that one thing does not necessarily mean it was that unless it can be duplicated.

Since you have discovered there is no irreparable harm, and if you would be willing, trying to duplicate the issue would be of definite help to those working on these drivers and to all of us planning on using them.

Ge64 said:

*bump*

After a few days I still don't have the harddisk problem anymore so that means it was caused by the (beta2) NTFS for Mac drivers.

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To date, I think you're the first to have this issue. bobtomay seems to have had it as well.

If you don't mind, I would agree with bobtomay, maybe trying to reinstall beta 2 and seeing if you could reproduce the problem. It would help us to see what causes it and how to avoid it, and then also help the developers to fix the bug.

And if you give it a try - post back the process that's eating cycles - with mine it was mds chewing up about 25-30%. I ended up letting it run it's course (seemed to run randomly over the course of a couple of days useage) and all is back to normal. In my quickie research, found several things that could cause this and so did not put it together with the beta.

I'll install the drivers again and answer any questions, im not really an advanced Mac user.

bobtomay said:

And if you give it a try - post back the process that's eating cycles - with mine it was mds chewing up about 25-30%.

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A posted two threads on this forum asking how to find out which process was using the harddisk, but after several days still no reply. Its the harddisk thats reading, but the CPU is fine, as you can see in the screen. What information do you exactly need?

Sorry, missed those.

If the drive is being read like that, some process will be causing it.
If it starts through an intensive read of the drive - open Activity Monitor.
Change the drop down at the top to only show 'Active Processes'.
We should be able to see which process here is causing it.

Thats exactly what I did above. As you can see, there are no programs or widgets there, just system stuff.

Edit: I noticed I never really posted the screen here, just a link. I posted the screen in this topic earlier

Edit: Its doing it again now. The spotlight icon isnt doing anything.
Edit: What now happens is when I try to access a file on the NTFS volume, eg an MP3, it'll take a while and load Quicktime Player and then itll not respond. It takes 20 seconds of hard work to open the right-click menu on a file. When I manage to open the mp3 in VLC it plays like a youtube video that wont download fast enough.

In that link, 'mds' in the active processes is Spotlight indexing process.
From what I've found so far, anytime it is running, you're drive is going to be working. The only time I really noticed it that much on my system was when 'mds' was hitting 20%+.

I am not sure - does Spotlight index a Bootcamp NTFS partition normally or not?
Or is this being added by NTFS for Mac?
I just don't recall seeing results show up in my searches prior to installing NTFS for Mac.
Anyone know?

bobtomay said:

In that link, 'mds' in the active processes is Spotlight indexing process.
From what I've found so far, anytime it is running, you're drive is going to be working. The only time I really noticed it that much on my system was when 'mds' was hitting 20%+.

I am not sure - does Spotlight index a Bootcamp NTFS partition normally or not?
Or is this being added by NTFS for Mac?
I just don't recall seeing results show up in my searches prior to installing NTFS for Mac.
Anyone know?

Click to expand...

I haven't had issues with my Bootcamp partition, which is partitioned as NTFS. I don't know if Spotlight has tried to index it yet or not, but I haven't had any performance issues with it.

I don't have this issue with Paragon's program either. I have connected my external drive here and there, and it has worked normally. I'll have to keep an eye out and see if this problem is reproducible.

Dear Forum Visitors,

I would like to inform you that I uploaded Beta 3 (I hope the last beta ).

NTFS partitions with Windows installed now should appear in the "Startup disk" preference pane.

Dear Ge64,
I hope all your problems are fixed in the beta 3. Please check it. We also have encountered a problem when a NTFS volume was opened as a file.

Thank you all again.
Anatoly.