Mac OS X Lion to have native support for NTFS...


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Better late than never I guess...

Well it's not really that important of a feature imho.

Yes it may make it easier for people who are using for example NTFS formatted USB drives but I can't remember the last time I personally ran into such a need, the exFAT support was considerably more important due to various cameras starting to employ it recently.

NTFS support has been in Snow Leopard. It only reads but default but you can enable the write function by: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=785376

It can be unstable, that's why, I guess, they never enabled it my default.

Does Lion bring read and write natively?

Well it's not really that important of a feature imho.

Yes, and that is your opinion. For those of us in reality-land who have Windows partitions and whatnot, it is a welcome thing. Regardless if you could enable the flakey support in Snow Leopard or not. :p

EDIT: Also, what is the problem with Apple adding 'options' for people? I fail to see any valid reason they should NOT support NTFS.

NTFS support has been in Snow Leopard. It only reads but default but you can enable the write function by: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=785376

It can be unstable, that's why, I guess, they never enabled it my default.

Does Lion bring read and write natively?

I wish I'd known this before reformatting my USB drive into HFS

Excellent. This will save me a bunch of time with not having to load up a virtual machine just to copy files to a disk.

At work I use a lot of external drives that are used by Windows users, not all on Vista/7 (which counts out exFAT) and most of our data files are larger than the max file size FAT32 supports.

When do we see Ext4 and HFS+ in Windows? Here's an estimate; never.

Which has what to do with Apple adding NTFS write support to OSX?

I fail to see any valid reason they should NOT support NTFS.

When Microsoft open up the NTFS format for all to use, then Apple can fully support NTFS.

What's the problem with Microsoft adding 'options' for people? I fail to see any valid reason they should NOT support HFS+.

When do we see Ext4 and HFS+ in Windows? Here's an estimate; never.

Yeah, because Microsoft is usually very slow to support anything other than their own formats for anything (other than common things like MPEG and JPEG). It took Windows 7 before Microsoft put in the ability to natively read MOV files (and even then, it only supports newer ones).

Will Windows work on HFS? It seems very different in design at the core to BSD and Linux

No, it won't. Current versions of Windows won't even install on FAT32 anymore (the last one that did was XP). As it stands right now, Windows is NTFS-only when it comes to booting.

When Microsoft open up the NTFS format for all to use, then Apple can fully support NTFS.

What's the problem with Microsoft adding 'options' for people? I fail to see any valid reason they should NOT support HFS+.

When I installed Bootcamp drivers in Windows it allowed me to view the OSX volume. It'd be nice if it supported it natively but really the Mac population is too small to warrant the time spent.

Microsoft has been better recently though. Particularly with Windows 7 when they introduced native DivX/Xvid support (don't you still need a plugin in OSX for that?).

Will Windows work on HFS? It seems very different in design at the core to BSD and Linux

Never, no. While Microsoft will eventually transition to something in the long distant future, NTFS is still the core of a lot of Windows functionality.

Not built in of course, and I can't comment on how well they work (never had the need) but there are ways for Windows boxes to read Ext4 and HFS.

Of course but here's the crux of the problem; everyone keeps shouting how we must develop Windows interoperability but no one seems to demand that Microsoft do the same. The only concessions we've had so far have been when EU stepped in and told them "Do it or else".

Excellent. This will save me a bunch of time with not having to load up a virtual machine just to copy files to a disk.

At work I use a lot of external drives that are used by Windows users, not all on Vista/7 (which counts out exFAT) and most of our data files are larger than the max file size FAT32 supports.

...

Microsoft released an update for XP that adds support for exFAT, I keep it on a thumb stick so I can install it on any old XP system I come across.

Of course but here's the crux of the problem; everyone keeps shouting how we must develop Windows interoperability but no one seems to demand that Microsoft do the same. The only concessions we've had so far have been when EU stepped in and told them "Do it or else".

No arguments there, and I wouldn't mind seeing the aging NTFS system get replaced with something a bit more modern. Rather pleased with Ext4 myself, can't comment on HFS as my Mac experience is limited to dabbling with a Hackintosh and is pretty rudimentary at best.

Exactly. With both Windows 7 and Snow Leopard natively supporting exFat, I'm not sure if there is even a need for OS X to support writing to NTFS

not important huh? what about people who are in large organizations who rely on windows heavily who have massive amounts of data stored on NTFS volumes, and I'm not talking about network attached storage, but fiber channel SAN's and large portable external drives, etc.......

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