Paragon Driver For Mac

In August of 2020, Paragon Software proposed its own implementation of Microsoft NTFS as a Linux kernel driver. While the reception was positive and welcome in general, some questions still remained which must be clarified in detail.

Frequently Asked Questions

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How do different NTFS implementations for Linux, referenced in this FAQ, compare to each other?

The following table provides a detailed comparison of all 4 NTFS implementations referenced here.

Why is your driver better than the Original NTFS implementation dated back by 2001?

Paragon’s implementation offers full read-write support (including NTFS compressed/sparse files) and journal replaying over the original one. After our patch is accepted into the kernel, we plan to support this version, add new features, and fix bugs. For example, full journaling support over JBD will be added in future updates.

What’s the difference between NTFS-3G and NTFS3?

NTFS-3G is a filesystem in userspace (FUSE). The main drawback of this implementation is speed. On the contrary, NTFS3 is a kernel driver, which offers much faster performance than FUSE based implementations.

Are you planning to add any decent filesystem utilities? The existing alternatives such as fsck.NTFS/NTFSck and fsck.(v)fat don’t work well, and the community has been waiting for a fix.

Yes, we plan to publish and open-source our mkfs.NTFS utility. We may also open-source rapidcopyfile and backup utilities for NTFS once mkfs has been published.

Why did you decide to open-source implementation of NTFS?

First, we must emphasize that we decided to develop a Linux kernel implementation from scratch for a number of reasons. One of these reasons is to leverage C-language in Linux kernel components, but we also believe that both we and the community will benefit from this contribution in the long term. We share the principles of the Linux Open Source Community and support its ongoing development.

Microsoft made the decision to allow the use of exFAT in the Linux kernel, and thus, we felt encouraged to give Linux what it has been waiting for over the past 20 years*: quality NTFS support at the kernel level.

* – https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v2.5.8/source/fs/ntfs/fs.c

Is there a difference between NTFS3 and “Microsoft NTFS for Linux by Paragon Software”?

As already stated previously (FAQ3), NTFS3 is a standalone NTFS implementation written from scratch in 4 months. NTFS3 has a GPL-2.0 license, while Microsoft NTFS for Linux by Paragon Software has a proprietary license. Microsoft NTFS for Linux by Paragon Software, in addition to some features (ugm, fifo, socket, char dev, etc.), also includes support (regarding any performance issues) and utilities (chkNTFS and mkNTFS). We believe both we and the community will benefit from this contribution in the long term.

Are you planning to publish the NTFS3 code on GitHub?

Yes, we plan to publish the next releases on our GitHub: https://github.com/Paragon-Software-Group

You’ll find some of our published products there already. You may be interested in our Paragon APFS SDK.

Do you plan to further support / modify NTFS3 or completely transfer its maintenance to the community?

After our patch is accepted into the kernel, we are planning to maintain it, add new features, and fix bugs. For example, full journaling support over JBD will be added in future updates.

Do you intend to replace the existing code in the Linux kernel (with two drivers for NTFS) with your own code?

Yes, we are sure the community will appreciate the stability, performance, and excellent kernel architecture of our industrial-grade code, which has been available only for “big shots” with “deep pockets” up until now. Both of the current NTFS implementations appear to be well-done artifacts of the past. Once our code is accepted, we believe the current NTFS implementations will quickly become obsolete.

I am an OEM and need to have NTFS read/write support in my product running Linux. Which version of Paragon’s NTFS shall I use – an open source NTFS implementation committed by Paragon into a Linux Kernel or Paragon’s proprietary code?

The decision is up to you. Both implementations are equally good from a technical perspective. However, proprietary code usually comes with support, which assures that any type of complication you might encounter is address by a team with over two decades of experience. It’s worth mentioning that kernel implementation of file systems is a complicated subject. Neither Linux, nor MacOS were able to provide stable NTFS write support at a kernel level for decades. This is mainly due to the fact that this requires a very sophisticated testing environment to ensure that data loss bugs are eliminated when changes are introduced to a system. Paragon’s Linux Kernel implementation of NTFS complies with Paragon’s internal test requirements, but we’re unable to provide instant testing of the code once it’s accepted to a Linux Kernel and altered further by community. Another aspect is fine tuning of the performance of a specific device. Cell phone or action camera running Linux and accessing NTFS media have different performance, power, footprint and memory requirements comparing to a server or desktop running Linux. This sort of fine tuning can make a huge difference to a final configuration. If you feel you’re skilled enough to do tests and/or tuning yourself – you’re more than welcome to use the open source implementation. Yet another aspect is that any changes implemented to a kernel support of NTFS will need to be published, if distributed further with your hardware, according to requirements of GPL license. In many cases, OEM manufactures are unwilling to do this for a variety of reasons, and this leaves them with an option to use Paragon’s proprietary code, which comes under commercial license. All of the above is true for exFAT as well.

Table of NTFS Implementations Comparison

Product	License	Features	Link
Microsoft NTFS for Linux by Paragon Software	Commercial	Full NTFS filesystem implementation (including journaling support for advanced data safety) Extended Linux-Windows interopеrability features (including UGM feature – preservation of Unix access rights for file systems which do not support such) Any kind of Linux-compatible hardware platform supported Top performance and resource-efficiency Industry-proven C/C++ codebase with decades of production usage in Tier-1 OEMs devices Excessive household test coverage based on decades of field usage of the product	https://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-linux-professional/
NTFS3 Linux Kernel Read/Write support by Paragon Software (NTFS3)	GPL	Fully Open Source implementation based on knowledge and expertise in the field Advanced performance and resource efficiency Full-featured file system implementation (read, write, compression, sparse files, journal replaying) integrated in the core of Linux (the Kernel)	https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20200918162204.3706029-1-almaz.alexandrovich@paragon-software.com/
Linux Kernel Read-only NTFS 2001 (original NTFS implementation)	GPL	Older, rarely updated codebase Partial feature implementation (read, very limited write support, no journaling)	https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v2.5.8/source/fs/ntfs/fs.c
NTFS-3G FUSE (NTFS-3G)	GPL	FUSE (Filesystem In Userspace) implementation of the driver FUSE layer gives significant overheads decreasing overall performance and resource usage of the driver	https://openinventionnetwork.com/linux-system/table-8/ (package # 1477)

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