NTFS on macOS Sierra: Paragon or Tuxera?

Tuxera vs Paragon

Update! I revisited this question with a modern computer and a slightly different outcome. See that article here!

If you’re like me, you use Macs and PCs on the same desk, have a pile of external disks ranging from 1-2 terabytes to a bunch of terabytes, and you’ve got a bunch of crap on all of them that needs to move around a lot. You’re probably not like me, but if you are, you probably don’t want to be using ExFAT on all of those disks, because ExFAT sucks. So you want good performance accessing those drives, you don’t want to lose all your data if a fly lands in the wrong spot in Belize, and you need read/write access from Mac as well as Windows? Sucks to be you. But luckily, there’s actually competition in this space these days. Screw ExFAT, and HFS+ is right out, leaving you with NTFS, which is read-only by default in macOS. You’ve got three options to add write support: Tuxera NTFS for MacParagon NTFS for Mac 14, and NTFS-3G. But which do you chose?

Not NTFS-3g

Easy answer here. It’s a PITA to install on OSX, and the performance isn’t great. It CAN be pretty reliable, and because it’s open-source, there are lots of eyes on it. But leave it to the Linux crowd, where it’s a much more fluid experience.

Tuxera

Tuxera is actually a principle developer of NTFS-3G, and the commercial product is built on top of it with some substantial proprietary improvements to performance.

Paragon

Paragon hasn’t been around as long, but they’ve got a pretty polished product. Because it’s not based on NTFS-3G, it should be immune to some of the performance oddities of NTFS-3G, as well.

But which one?

Okay, so how do Paragon and Tuxera stack up? I wanted to know, so I did some research and ran some tests. On cost, Paragon wins. Kind of. It’s $22 USD at time of writing to buy a license, and Seagate actually partners with Paragon to offer the latest version for free as long as you only want to be able to write Seagate disks. If that’s true for you, stop here, Paragon’s what you want. You can get the Seagate-only copy here. On the other hand, Tuxera is $31 USD, so a few bucks more. But there’s a caveat – Paragon charges for each upgrade, which typically bumps macOS major version compatibility. So you’ll probably have to pay again each time Apple releases a new OS. Tuxera doesn’t – one license with free upgrades. As well, Tuxera charges on the basis of one license, one person. Paragon is one license per machine, which will add up if you’ve got more than one Mac you need write support for. On this basis, I’d say Tuxera wins on cost, though it looks more expensive. For $9, I’d rather get free upgrades and one license for all my personal machines.

Performance

But what about performance? I hooked up some external disks to see. I have two NTFS externals I primarily need support for, one of which is a Samsung SSD T3, and one of which is a Western Digital spinning disk. My Late 2011 Macbook Pro doesn’t have built-in USB3.0 support, so for the USB3 tests, I’m using a USB3 ExpressCard/34 adapter. The caveat here is that the ExpressCard/34 slot only has 2.5Gbps of bandwidth, so while it’s USB3 and much faster than USB2, it’s still a bottleneck on the up-to-5Gbps USB3. That matters for the SSD in particular, which can max the bus. For the numbers, I’m using BlackMagic’s speed test from the App Store.

DiskDriverConnectionRead (MB/s)Write (MB/s)Winner?
Internal HD(HFS+)SATA88112.9
Internal SSD(HFS+)SATA471.8246.8
SSDParagonUSB3187.3167.2Paragon (40%)
SSDTuxeraUSB3133.1119
SSDParagonUSB234.225.1Tie
SSDTuxeraUSB226.928.3
HDDParagonUSB3106.8104.9Tie
HDDTuxeraUSB3104.7103.6
HDDParagonUSB233.428Tie
HDDTuxeraUSB229.827

So in the end, Paragon is faster, but to a degree that totally doesn’t matter unless you’ve got a ripping-fast external SSD and USB3.0.

Conclusion

On the one hand, Paragon is SUBSTANTIALLY faster on the SSD/USB3 test than Tuxera. On the other, I really prefer Tuxera’s licensing, and it’ll be somewhat rare that I’m using this machine for performance-intensive stuff on the one drive I have where it matters. I’m going with Tuxera. TL;DR: Buy Paragon if you have a ludicrously fast external SSD and need all the performance. Otherwise, Tuxera’s licensing is better, and performance as good as matters for anything else.

I’ll let you know if it nukes my data and demands a ransom in the next few months.

15 Comments

  1. Ali Panahi
    July 22, 2017

    Thanks, Alex. great comparison.

  2. Bob
    October 3, 2017

    Thorough, informative analysis, thanks!

  3. Arry
    November 19, 2017

    Yeah really happy that your clear review showed up in Googles search results Thanks a lot!

  4. Ray
    January 9, 2018

    Does your paragon ntfs hangs a lot? Mine seems to hang a lot. Took me like ages to unmount my drive. (Seagate backup plus portable 2TB)

  5. loverk
    January 28, 2018

    Concise and very helpful

  6. Hyun
    February 3, 2018

    Hi thanks for the review. But there is one thing I would like to ask ( maybe it sounds silly ). But if I use Paragon, can I transfer files between my NTFS WD 1GB Harddisk with my Flash Disk plug together to my Macbook? Or When I’m using paragon, I can only transfer data between my Harddisk and Macbook, then I need to unplugged again to be able to read my Flash Disk?

  7. February 4, 2018

    Hyun – No problem with that at all. Both will handle mounting as many NTFS disks as you please.

  8. February 26, 2018

    Well
    For Me Tuxera is a winner for the simple fact that it mounts drives that Paragon won’t.
    I had two drives that worked fine on Windows 10 pro but would never mount (even in read only) on a mac (10.12.6)
    Paragon did not help, telling me that the drives were corrupt
    But Tuxera mounted them instantly on Os 10.12.6
    Thanks

  9. Vasiliy
    December 4, 2019

    Hello. I am writing a negative review about this program. I enclose screenshots of correspondence with [email protected], as well as repair receipts, after installing their program. This program erased the bootloader in the BIOS. I had to pay an overhaul. Tuxera is in no hurry to offset these costs. I also suffered work losses, but I ask you to compensate for the repair of my MacBook. http://joxi.ru/D2PGxW5IqGl3Dm http://joxi.ru/xAe6ndqURo79Jr http://joxi.ru/DrlR8n4iVp5Lv2 If anyone is interested in detailed correspondence, I can forward it to your email. http://joxi.ru/l2ZE5BOizpOgNm

  10. G David
    June 29, 2020

    I downloaded trial Tuxera to my iMac Pro 27 and found it perfect for my use ,ie formatting disks to ExFAT, ,NTFS, FAT32 etc etc. Now the bomb shell? I purchased, tried 7 times to download Tuxera, I had little joy dealing with 2checkout.com who sold me the product. Spent several hours over a week getting nowhere fast, I was asked to change my password 4 times, Tuxera would not accept, gave in, and asked Paypal to recover costs. Why cant we speak to someone or use note pad to rectify problems??????

  11. Killphil911
    November 30, 2020

    Thanks for a very concise, I was curious about Paragon, as I have used Tuxera for over
    7 years and before that fuse +NTFS 3G with no issues. But In light of the cost I think i will stick with Tuxera. and I have read quite a few neg reviews of Paragon customer service ..

  12. VASILIY
    November 30, 2020

    I do not impose any service or program on anyone. I just told my story, how a program under $ 30 can make problems.

  13. Chris
    December 11, 2020

    I had no idea about the Seagate deal and all my drives are Seagate, thanks for that!

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