Paragon NTFS on Apple M1: corrupted files

[Major Foster]

Hi guys,

For the last few years I enjoyed using the (free) Paragon NTFS For Mac software in combination with my Seagate external HDD. I am forced to use the HDD - which includes my movies - in this format because my LG OLED TV only supports NTFS (and not exFAT for example).

Since updating to a new M1 MacBook (and Paragon NTFS For Mac 15.8.108) everything worked fine at first sight, but the last few months I notice that a lot of the files I transfered (let's say 1/4) became corrupted during their transfer from my MacBook to the HDD. I always test the files on my MacBook before transferring, so I know they work perfectly. But once they are on the HDD approximately 1 in 4 don't work anymore. During transfers I never get a notification that something went wrong, which makes it difficult to predict which files are faulty.

Do any of you also experience this problem with Paragon NTFS since M1? Are there any other solutions? Ofcourse I always prefered Paragon because it was free to use with Seagate drives, but if I know for sure that other software does not have this kind of issues, I'm certainly willing to pay for it.

 

[xszuflax]

Hello,

I'm on the newest 15.9.314 Paragon NTFS For Mac, and I see no such issues. Firs few M1 releases were a little bit unstable but still had no corruption issues.

 

[jterp7]

Hi guys,

For the last few years I enjoyed using the (free) Paragon NTFS For Mac software in combination with my Seagate external HDD. I am forced to use the HDD - which includes my movies - in this format because my LG OLED TV only supports NTFS (and not exFAT for example).

Since updating to a new M1 MacBook (and Paragon NTFS For Mac 15.8.108) everything worked fine at first sight, but the last few months I notice that a lot of the files I transfered (let's say 1/4) became corrupted during their transfer from my MacBook to the HDD. I always test the files on my MacBook before transferring, so I know they work perfectly. But once they are on the HDD approximately 1 in 4 don't work anymore. During transfers I never get a notification that something went wrong, which makes it difficult to predict which files are faulty.

Do any of you also experience this problem with Paragon NTFS since M1? Are there any other solutions? Ofcourse I always prefered Paragon because it was free to use with Seagate drives, but if I know for sure that other software does not have this kind of issues, I'm certainly willing to pay for it.

hmm thought it was just me lol. But yea it always seems to be one file in the transfer that doesnt work. For me it happens on both my sandisk ssd and WD, the former which is essentially brand new so I was trying to figure out where it got messed up (original file definitely fine as you stated)

 

[jterp7]

did also want to mention that when i checked my version it says 109

 

[Major Foster]

Hello,

I'm on the newest 15.9.314 Paragon NTFS For Mac, and I see no such issues. Firs few M1 releases were a little bit unstable but still had no corruption issues.

Unfortunately I think 15.8.108 is the latest free release for Seagate hard drives (found on the official Seagate website). Tonight I will have a look if I can update manually to a later version in the program itself, but I don’t think so.

 

[jterp7]

Yea im on free western digital and tried to update. No luck im stuck on 109

 

[Major Foster]

 

[Rimmsi]

this problem is only on M1 mac?

 

[Major Foster]

Before the M1, I think I used Paragon NTFS for 2 years on a Intel Mac without ever experiencing this problem.

 

[lcubed]

there's a complaint over at the mac talk forum on dpreview that monterey and paragon have data corruption on M1

 

[Major Foster]

there's a complaint over at the mac talk forum on dpreview that monterey and paragon have data corruption on M1

Could you send me a link?

 

[lcubed]

Mac Monterey losing folders watch out!: Micro Four Thirds Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

Expert news, reviews and videos of the latest digital cameras, lenses, accessories, and phones. Get answers to your questions in our photography forums.

www.dpreview.com

Should you dump Monterey ?: Mac Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

Expert news, reviews and videos of the latest digital cameras, lenses, accessories, and phones. Get answers to your questions in our photography forums.

www.dpreview.com

 

[Major Foster]

This seems to be a different problem with entire drives gone missing. The problem I’m having is individual files not working anymore after transferring them to an external NTFS formatted drive.

 

[Rimmsi]

Some time ago, I backed up my data to external disk formatted as NTFS. I checked today this drive and some files can't be opened. So the mistake will be Monterey. Catalina has never been a problem.

 

[Major Foster]

Some time ago, I backed up my data to external disk formatted as NTFS. I checked today this drive and some files can't be opened. So the mistake will be Monterey. Catalina has never been a problem.

To be honest I have not considered the possibility that Monterey (and not the Paragon software) could be at the base of this problem. This would mean users of all kind of NTFS writing software should have the same problem on the latest MacOS release? Is that the case? iBoysoft? Tuxera?

 

[Rimmsi]

The bug probably will also work in Paragon NTFS, but I think the real problem will be in Monterey. I use Samsung USB drive formatted with exFat to transfer the data, and there I also found several corrupted files that I transferred from my MBP.

 

[lcubed]

from what i've seen, Paragon needs an update for monterey 12.2+

 

[darngooddesign]

Over in the iPad forum people are reporting corruption issues copying large files to NTFS drives, but not FAT drives.

 

[jdb8167]

It’s not a new issue. Here is a thread from January 2021.

get corrupt files on external nvme ssd

I can confirm that the problem is with Paragon NTFS for Mac. It definitely corrupted files on my system and it is completely reproducible. About 2-5% of a large group of JPEG files became corrupted during the NTFS write operation and I am still in the middle of cleaning up the mess it made...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Major Foster]

It’s not a new issue. Here is a thread from January 2021.

get corrupt files on external nvme ssd

I can confirm that the problem is with Paragon NTFS for Mac. It definitely corrupted files on my system and it is completely reproducible. About 2-5% of a large group of JPEG files became corrupted during the NTFS write operation and I am still in the middle of cleaning up the mess it made...

forums.macrumors.com

The guys in this thread seem to have the exact problem I’m talking about. It’s a pity after a year nothing changed. And if I’m correct: this is well before Monterey? So this could not be the underlying factor?

Regarding some comments above: I can’t help but think if the problem consistently existed not only with NTFS, but also with FAT drives, the scale of reports (and outrage) would be a lot bigger. So I’m inclined to conclude that this is a (Paragon) NTFS problem only.

 

[nhershy]

Hey @Major Foster,
I've been having the same issue as you. Have M1 MacBook running Ventura 13.2.1. And Paragon NTFS. I have auto updates installed so I'm on the newest Paragon version now. I also have a movie collection and store them on my external drive. I thought at first my movies were corrupt prior to transferring. Only just tonight did I realize that my movies were fine before transferring to my external drive, and only become corrupt after transferring the external drive. I confirmed this using Corrupt Video Inspector. I'm also convinced that it has to do with M1 Macs and Paragon NTFS. It's not that the movies don't work after transferring, but some (I'd say 1/10) get altered and then suffer from bouts of pixelation and glitches. There were some files that were corrupt after transferring to the external drive and I simply deleted them from the drive, retransferred from the Mac to the drive, and they were fine the second time. Have you found any official docs about this? Do you have any other workarounds? Thanks

 

[mi7chy]

Check if you're running the minimum required Paragon NTFS version for the MacOS version you're on.

https://kb.paragon-software.com/article/571

• macOS 13.00 – Ventura (NTFS for Mac build version 15.10.468 and higher)*
• macOS 12.00 – Monterey (NTFS for Mac build version 15.9.314 and higher)*
• macOS 11.00 – Big Sur (NTFS for Mac build version 15.6.13 and higher)*
• macOS 10.15 – Catalina
• macOS 10.14 – Mojave
• macOS 10.13 – High Sierra
• macOS 10.12 – Sierra
• OS X 10.11 – El Capitan (NTFS for Mac build version up to 15.5.106)**
• OS X 10.10 – Yosemite (< build version 15.5.41)**

If not, it's only $20 to upgrade.

https://shop.paragon-software.com/277/?scope=checkout&cart=226074&enablecoupon=false&cfg=paragon2018

 

[nhershy]

I'm currently on Paragon 15.10.590, so I don't think that's the problem. Granted, I have auto-updates enabled for Paragon software so I was not always on this version. Who knows if one of the versions introduced or fixed the bug. I'll have to do more testing and confirm if it still happens with this latest version. But I'm 100% positive the video file corruption was happening with prior versions.