How To: Enable Native NTFS Read/Write Support

NTFS?  On your Mac??  Outrageous!  Sadly, I can think of several reasons myself why this could be a necessary evil.  The problem is, while OS X 10.6 supports NTFS straight out of the box, it does not support read AND write.  Use this little trick to enable native read/write support.

  1. In Terminal, type diskutil info /Volumes/volume_name, where volume_name is the name of the NTFS volume. From the output, copy the Volume UUID value to the clipboard.
  2. Back up /etc/fstab if you have it; it shouldn't be there in a default install.
  3. Type sudo nano /etc/fstab.
  4. In the editor, type UUID=, then paste the UUID number you copied from the clipboard. Type a Space, then type none ntfs rw. The final line should look like this: UUID=123-456-789 none ntfs rw, where 123-456-789 is the UUID you copied in the first step.
  5. Repeat the above steps for any other NTFS drives/partitions you have.
  6. Save the file and quit nano (Control-X, Y, Enter), then restart your system.
This works with both 32- and 64-bit kernels and, after rebooting, NTFS partitions should natively have read and write support.

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