macOS and Windows 10 on same drive, shared volume between OSes with read/write

[ishraqiyun77]

Looking at a Razer Blade 15 (i7-8750H) which only has one m.2 drive. Planning on putting a 2TB in it and swapping out the wifi card.

For the single drive, I was going to split it up into three parts: Windows 10, macOS, and a shared volume for digital audio workstation (DAW) files (sample libraries and project files).

I have a couple questions related to this:

1. I've read in several places having macOS and Windows is not recommended. It can be done (>= 200MB EFI volume, format as GPT, etc.). I guess the problem is Windows tends to modify the EFI when it updates. Anyway, to prevent or mitigate this? Is it a fairly simple fix if this happens? Not even sure what the issue it creates is.
2. As for sharing files between volumes, I know that neither macOS nor Windows can write to NTFS (macOS->Windows) or APFS/HFS+ (Windows->macOS) out of the box. Basically leaves exFAT or third-party software that enables writing to NTFS or APFS/HFS+ like Paragon. exFAT seems to generally not be recommended. Some people say things like Paragon are no good; others say they work great. Just curious if something like Paragon would be fast and reliable enough to write/stream audio files to the shared volume?

Thanks for the help!

 

[Feartech]

Looking at a Razer Blade 15 (i7-8750H) which only has one m.2 drive. Planning on putting a 2TB in it and swapping out the wifi card.

For the single drive, I was going to split it up into three parts: Windows 10, macOS, and a shared volume for digital audio workstation (DAW) files (sample libraries and project files).

I have a couple questions related to this:

1. I've read in several places having macOS and Windows is not recommended. It can be done (>= 200MB EFI volume, format as GPT, etc.). I guess the problem is Windows tends to modify the EFI when it updates. Anyway, to prevent or mitigate this? Is it a fairly simple fix if this happens? Not even sure what the issue it creates is.
2. As for sharing files between volumes, I know that neither macOS nor Windows can write to NTFS (macOS->Windows) or APFS/HFS+ (Windows->macOS) out of the box. Basically leaves exFAT or third-party software that enables writing to NTFS or APFS/HFS+ like Paragon. exFAT seems to generally not be recommended. Some people say things like Paragon are no good; others say they work great. Just curious if something like Paragon would be fast and reliable enough to write/stream audio files to the shared volume?

Thanks for the help!

do not use Paragon, it will mess up your macOS partition

 

[ishraqiyun77]

do not use Paragon, it will mess up your macOS partition

How about the current state of dual booting on the same SSD?

The consensus seems to be not to do it even if following proper procedure for doing so. Is that just people parroting what they have heard from others, or actually have experience with it failing? Some people seem to do it, say they aren't having issues, but never follow-up to say if they have run into issues months or a year down the road.

Reason I'm asking is because I have the choice of going with an MSI GS65 which has two m.2 (and is going to be an absolute b*tch to work on) or the Razer Blade 15 which has one m.2, but better performance, thermals, and noise emissions than the GS65... not considerably, but still noticeably "better". Yeah, I guess I could put macOS on an external drive, but that is lame.

 

[jiubai18]

Looking at a Razer Blade 15 (i7-8750H) which only has one m.2 drive. Planning on putting a 2TB in it and swapping out the wifi card.

For the single drive, I was going to split it up into three parts: Windows 10, macOS, and a shared volume for digital audio workstation (DAW) files (sample libraries and project files).

I have a couple questions related to this:

1. I've read in several places having macOS and Windows is not recommended. It can be done (>= 200MB EFI volume, format as GPT, etc.). I guess the problem is Windows tends to modify the EFI when it updates. Anyway, to prevent or mitigate this? Is it a fairly simple fix if this happens? Not even sure what the issue it creates is.
2. As for sharing files between volumes, I know that neither macOS nor Windows can write to NTFS (macOS->Windows) or APFS/HFS+ (Windows->macOS) out of the box. Basically leaves exFAT or third-party software that enables writing to NTFS or APFS/HFS+ like Paragon. exFAT seems to generally not be recommended. Some people say things like Paragon are no good; others say they work great. Just curious if something like Paragon would be fast and reliable enough to write/stream audio files to the shared volume?

Thanks for the help!

Hi, to your question 2, MacOS actually support to read and writing NTFS, you don't have to use third-party software. Formatted sharing volumes to NTFS in Windows and then use this code in terminal to turn on it(change the underlined part to your actual UUID of NTFS partition, you can obtain the UUID by "get info" from diskUtility):

sudo nano /etc/fstab

UUID=4E91642C-B7CD-46E8-9328-99B2E149D8FE none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse
UUID=75278436-96E3-4502-B1D4-96E171E39378 none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse
UUID=1ABBBFFE-75CD-40A1-B2AF-48271E592874 none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse

Ctrl+O then Enter
Ctrl+X

And then reboot. You should be able to write in the NTFS partition.

 

[jaymonkey]

MacOS actually support to read and writing NTFS, you don't have to use third-party software. Formatted sharing volumes to NTFS in Windows and then use this code in terminal to turn on.

@jiubai18,

This is very bad advice ...

Whilst the above does work it is highly not recommended, MacOS's built in implementation of NTFS was never finished and is considered a legacy experimental feature by Apple, it will happy read NTFS volumes but Apple disabled the write function by default for a reason.

Apple based its NTFS support on the initial NTFS specification, but MS wanted money for a license agreement which would entitle Apple to update the NTFS support in MacOS as the specification evolved, Apple refused to pay for the license and the two companies fell out over the issue and so Apple discontinued NTFS development in MacOS.

The built in NTFS support in MacOS should be considered a legacy experimental feature, generally the read function works fine but if you enable the write function and use it regularly IT WILL CORRUPT a NTFS volume eventually.

As the NTFS write support is legacy/experimental/unfinished it often causes a kernel panic, because this usually happens when it is actually writing to a NTFS volume it can either corrupt the file you where writing or worse corrupt the MFT (Master File Table) which can destroy the entire volume.

Paid 3rd party NTFS drivers such as Paragon or Tuxera (which is what I use) have a license agreement in place with MS for the NTFS specification and therefore are always using the latest NTFS code/standard and are a much safer option.

If you need to write to NTFS volumes in MacOS regularly then do yourself a favour and purchase an up-to-date NTFS driver such as Paragon or Tuxera that supports the latest NTFS specification.

Cheers
Jay