Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X Public Beta Testing

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Dear Forum Visitors,

During last six months Paragon (www.paragon-software.com) has been working on our first software for Mac OS X – Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X.
This product allows Mac users to use Microsoft NTFS file system as Mac OS X native.
Now the product is almost ready and we want to offer you its Public Beta version. It's the first time when we do public beta testing. There is one big reason for that: we do want to make Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X a useful tool for every Mac user. That's why we need your opinion about it.

What we expect from you:
1. Bug reports (though we hope that there won't be many). If you find a bug, describe in details the way it can be reproduced. We need every detail, every step. Write your OS version and CPU architecture.
2. Usability issues. We want to make the product as easy to use as possible. Write us what is to be improved or changed. Make your suggestions detailed and reasonable. This will help us to understand them and implement in a right way.
3. New feature suggestions. In fact we don't have much time before the release date to implement new features. Though if a suggested feature is easy to implement or requested by many people, then we will do it.

To download the public beta version, please fill out a short web form and download it - Microsoft NTFS for Mac | Paragon Software

Meantime you can look at our short Product Description. There is not much text ;)
http://ftp.paragon.eu.com/Mac/Product_description_Public_Beta_Testing.pdf

We will read your feedback in this thread very carefully. We also excuse in advance about lack of replies. We won't be able to reply all your posts, but we will do "summary" replies once or twice a day in this thread.

PS. We appreciate this forum community very much. That's why we selected this forum for our Public beta testing. In exchange to your help we will be glad to provide the most active beta testers with free versions of this software. The rest will have 30% discount.

Thank you in advance and best regards,
Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X team.
 
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Why would you want to use NTFS? - I mean, if I wanted to use NTFS I wouldn't have paid to switch to Mac.

Im sure your software is great and all but I definately wouldn't have a need for it.
 
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^^ What is wrong with you? This is big news. What if you friend gets his external disk and pluggs into your Mac and you want to copy some stuff on his drive only to find its NTFS? What about those times.....there are so many times! NTFS is better than Fat32 at least....

Thanks a lot Paragon..you are God sent
 
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Dear IRock,

In case you have dual-boot system with Mac and Windows OS, you have to use a NTFS partition to install Windows. This software will help you to get full (read/write) access to a NTFS partition under Mac OS. As a second case, you will be able to carry over your data between PC and Mac using external mediums with NTFS partitions. Please note, FAT32 has some restrictions that will not allow you to carry over huge files (greater then 4GB).

Best regards,
Anatoly.
 
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Hey where can I get this BETA? It's not there on your site.

Sorry. Got it.
 

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Dear IRock,

In case you have dual-boot system with Mac and Windows OS, you have to use a NTFS partition to install Windows. This software will help you to get full (read/write) access to a NTFS partition under Mac OS. As a second case, you will be able to carry over your data between PC and Mac using external mediums with NTFS partitions. Please note, FAT32 has some restrictions that will not allow you to carry over huge files (greater then 4GB).

Best regards,
Anatoly.

Sorry if my last response seemed a little offensive ;) - didn't intend for it to come across that way.

I fully understand the limitations of FAT32 & the benefits/drawbacks of the 3main file systems relevant here.

I get your point, being able to read NTFS would be great to read XP partitions on my Mac.

However, the point that I am trying to make is that I moved to Mac to break away from Microsoft Software/Technology:


what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons

No doubt the ability to access NTFS and fully utilize it will be useful for many.

I just have a few questions about the software:
Is this opensource?
If not, will there be a charge for it?
If so, can you give an estimate of the expected retail price?

Cheers ;)
 
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iRock,

Thanks for your clarification. I understand your point of view. But please note, there are many or few Mac users that are faced with inability to write their data to NTFS partitions under Mac OS X for many reasons. This software must solve this communication problem based on difference between Windows and Mac OS X file systems.

We are planning to sell this product for a low price, just to cover the costs to support our first Mac product. Any ideas regarding its price?

Best regards,
Anatoly.
 
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No suggestions on a figure. But reasonable. Software developers have to be paid. ;)
 
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So, has anyone tried it out yet? What do you think of it?

Right now, all of Windows, Mac and Linux can use the Linux standard ext2/ext3 file system, so I tend to use this as my format for sharing files on external drives.

However, with Paragon's new software on the Mac, and the new ntfs-3g now available on Linux, NTFS would become a second file system common to all three and that would be very good.

As to the pricing, consider MacDrive. VERY expensive for what it delivers, and thus many of us stay away from it (it is HFS+ for Windows). Your software would be of great value to many if it was priced nicely. My "off the top" suggestion: $19.99.
 
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Folks, I have done some poking around on the web. Paragon hails from Germany and apparently have been in the file system mounting business for quite some time. They have a large array of products, such as NTFS for Win 9x, Ext2/3 Everywhere, Mount Anything, etc. They look like a credible operation with some market history. However, I was unable to find even a single review of the closest of their products to this one that I could find, NTFS for Win 98.

Anatoly, since you appear to be a Paragon employee, can you point me to some user reviews of your product? Shopping safe is a key concern these days! Thanks.

Similarly Anatoly, since I am an engineer, I am wondering if you can point us to any information on the performance of your implementation of NTFS on Mac vs. NTFS on say Win XP? Slower, faster, neutral? I recognize that the Mac version is still in Beta, so perhaps you could provide this sort of information for your Windows 9x version?

One last question. NTFS debuted in Windows NT back in the mid 1990's. I understand that Microsoft has issued several revisions since then. Is the version you are offering here the very latest?
 
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Hello mac57,

Thank you very much for your feedback and questions.

As to the pricing, we are really not planning to offer this product for a price higher than $19.99.

Paragon has developed a unique "Universal File System Driver Software Development Kit" that allows us get access to file systems including none-supported for DOS, Windows, Linux and now MAC OSs.

Some of our products based on our technology:
NTFS for DOS;
NTFS for Win98;
Mount Everything;
NTFS for Linux.
The most famous is NTFS for Linux (www.ntfs-linux.com). (outdated link removed)
Here you can find some its reviews:
http://ftp.paragon.eu.com/Mac/NTFS_6_Review_Linux_Magazin.pdf
http://ftp.paragon.eu.com/Mac/NTFS_6_Review_SoftwareNews .pdf
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1855751,00.asp

As to performance, I have made a short Product Description document:
http://ftp.paragon.eu.com/Mac/Product_description.pdf, where you can find our performance table that illustrates that NTFS for Mac has a really great performance.

Please note, there are three versions of NTFS File System: 1.2, 3.0 and 3.1. Each of this versions is used in deferent Windows OS and has additional failures.
NTFS version v1.2 -> Windows versions: NT 3.51, NT 4;
NTFS version v3.0 -> Windows versions: 2000;
NTFS version v3.1 -> Windows versions: XP, Server 2003, Vista.
NTFS for Mac OS X supports all NTFS versions.

Looking forward to hearing your feedback on how the driver works into your environment.
Thank you in advance,
Anatoly.
 
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i am a recent switcher. i have never tried writing data to an NTFS formated drive before so i dont know what it would do with out your software. I just tried installing your software just now and the process was very easy. I just tried writing to my external USB NTFS formated drive and it worked flawlessly. I have never tried writing to it before but did just now and im guessing it is your software that i just installed that let me do it. If this is so... I Love it :D
 
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Hi Anatoly, thanks for the detailed reply. You even forgot one of your products, Ext2FS for Windows. Paragon has an impressive range of products I have to admit. I will be purchasing your Ext2FS for Windows this week, as it resolves a long standing dual boot issue I have on a system running Windows ME on one partition and Linux on another. So, this thread has generated at least one sale! I was very pleased to see that you had such a product. I had until now looked in vain for such a thing. This thread brought Paragon to my attention, motivated me to investigate and serendipitously allowed me to stumble over the Ext2FS for Windows offering.

As you note, Linux Format magazine just recently reviewed your NTFS for Linux, which I suspect is reasonably similar to the Mac version (both *nix based implementations. For the readers of this thread, they gave it good grades, even noting that it exceeds the capabilities of Linux's latest open source NTFS driver, ntfs-3g.

So, it would appear that the Paragon NTFS for Mac may be a very good product indeed. I am going to try out the Ext2FS for Windows first, and if that goes well (strikes me as a far more difficult thing to do correctly) I will move on to the NTFS for Mac.

Thanks Paragon, for providing some much needed bridges between the oft disparate worlds of multi vendor OS's.
 
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As to performance, I have made a short Product Description document:http://ftp.paragon.eu.com/Mac/Product description.pdf, where you can find our performance table that illustrates that NTFS for Mac has a really great performance.

Whoops, this link is dead. Just produces a 404 error. Can you fix that please? I (and I suspect others) would be most interested in reading it!
 
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Hi mac57,

I have corrected the link. Thanks for the remark.

Frankly speaking, I can't find the review made by Linux Format magazine.
Could you please post a link?

Wish you success when using Ext2FS for Windows. I believe you will be satisfied.

Thanks,
Anatoly.
 

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Have installed NTFS for Mac OS X and so far have only experimented.

I have XP Pro set up with an NTFS partition via Bootcamp and use it primarily for... let's just say, files larger than 4GB.

I am now able to browse my NTFS partition from within a Finder window and:
1) delete/move files to the trash - one of the easiest deletions of the infamous index.dat file
2) re-organise the XP file structure - move files/folders around on the partition
3) download Win executables while in OS X and then move them to the NTFS partition
4) have also moved files from my external HFS+ drive to the NTFS partition

So far, all has worked as if it were an inherent ability within OS X with no interaction on my part other than installing the software. (Moved a 7GB file from my external HFS+ drive to the Bootcamp partition - and while I did not put a stopwatch on it - it seemed to be as fast as moving files between my HFS drives.)

Had downloaded and tried MediaFour's MacDrive in XP. It also worked great - but due to it's price decided to find workarounds for the small bit of interaction I wanted to do between my NTFS and HFS local partitions on my MBP.

Paragon's NTFS for Mac OS X - at a $20 price point, Paragon gets my $$ just for the convenience. For those only needing access between NTFS and HFS+ on their Mac, this looks like the way to go.

And, except for those that need access to IE only sites, but just on occasion are wanting to download a Win .exe file, it can now be done while in OS X and just save or move the file to your XP partition. This would totally eliminate the need for using a browser from within windows. This in itself could end the practice of Spybot and AVG on your Bootcamped partition.
 
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Hi Anatoly, unfortunately, I can't post a link to the Linux Format review - I get the hard copy print version of the magazine and I simply read the article on paper - how archaic! :D

Thanks for correcting the link to the performance article. I will have a browse through! Cheers.
 
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Dear Forum Visitors,

Please let us know your feedback regarding this new software. We believe any software has bugs, especially a beta version. The release date is soon and we want to release software that will be a really useful tool for every Mac user.

Thanks in advance,
Anatoly.
 

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Anatoly - I've been using your product for about a week now and haven't encountered any problems whatsoever. I have primarily read and written to an NTFS-formatted external hard disk. I have yet to test it with another drive.

My machine is a MacBook Pro, 2.0GHz Core Duo with 2GB of RAM and a 120GB HDD.
 

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