


Its 20, offers Lion support, and you get a five-day trial to try before you buy. The commercial solution, which will give you access to support and software updates, is Paragon NTFS. Many have vouched for its success, but others complain about bugs.

However, it is an open-source program, so use it at your own risk. NTFS-3G is an open-source program that, when coupled with MacFuse, will let you use your NTFS drive on your Mac. If you keep your hard drives out-of-the-box NTFS format for all the reasons FAT32 displeases, theres a workaround that will allow your Mac to read and write files to the drive. Option 1: Format to NTFS, and use NTFS-3G to readwrite on Mac. The alternative solutions do require more tinkering, but if you do not want to risk FAT32s lack of security, choose from one of the following alternatives. Its large cluster sizes waste disk space, unlike the other HD storage formats. Its not a huge issue, but FAT32 is less efficient at storing files. In general, FAT32 drives are more susceptible to disk errors. So, for example, if you want to store a 9GB movie, it will be impossible. The max size for any given file stored on a FAT32-formatted HD is 4GB.

If your HD gets into the wrong hands, that person will be able to access your data. The video and directions below will guide you through the process, but before you format your HD to FAT32, beware of these drawbacks: FAT32 offers no security, unlike NTFS, which allows you to set permissions.
