Transfering data from hdd to a mac desktop

[Nipplemilk909]

Hi 

I have a 3.5 hdd I got out of a pc and I need to transfer the data to an already in use mac. 

 

How can I transfer the data easiest and fastest 

[Dissitesuxba11s]

If you just want to transfer the data, something like this will work.

[Origami Cactus]

5 minutes ago, Dissitesuxba11s said:

If you just want to transfer the data, something like this will work.

Doesnt mac hate ntfs file system?

He needs to format the hdd to exfat and then put all the files back?

[Dissitesuxba11s]

3 minutes ago, Origami Cactus said:

Doesnt mac hate ntfs file system?

He needs to format the hdd to exfat and then put all the files back?

Shoot, you're right. Forgot about that.

[jj9987]

Macs can read NTFS fine, writing to it requires a bit of work, but can still be achieved.

[Nipplemilk909]

1 hour ago, Origami Cactus said:

Doesnt mac hate ntfs file system?

He needs to format the hdd to exfat and then put all the files back?

So I need to format the hdd with data in it ? So transfer the data to ANOTHER drive ? Then put it back to the hdd then into the mac ? 

[Nipplemilk909]

1 hour ago, jj9987 said:

Macs can read NTFS fine, writing to it requires a bit of work, but can still be achieved.

Data transfering would be writing it no? 

[Origami Cactus]

Just now, Nipplemilk909 said:

Data transfering would be writing it no? 

If you are reading from the hdd to your mac then not, but idk when i tested i didnt have anything on my hdd, i just couldnt write to it in macos.

[jj9987]

13 hours ago, Nipplemilk909 said:

Data transfering would be writing it no? 

What do you mean? What way are you transferring?

13 hours ago, Origami Cactus said:

If you are reading from the hdd to your mac then not, but idk when i tested i didnt have anything on my hdd, i just couldnt write to it in macos.

Okay, so

Transferring from external HDD to Mac = reading the HDD and writing to the Mac's drive

Transferring from Mac to external HDD = reading the Mac's drive and writing to the HDD

 

One of these requires NTFS write access. This is literally that easy https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/20889/how-do-i-write-to-ntfs-drives-in-os-x/213575#213575

 

13 hours ago, Nipplemilk909 said:

So I need to format the hdd with data in it ? So transfer the data to ANOTHER drive ? Then put it back to the hdd then into the mac ? 

Formatting removes all the data from the drive. So yes, you would need to copy the data to another drive.

 

Okay, it seems this is getting too complicated.

If you have an NTFS drive with data and you need to get it to the Mac, just connect the drive to the Mac and copy the data over. Unless you are running very old version of macOS, you shouldn't have any issues with that.

[rkchang77]

As someone indicated, I think macOS has built-in read-only NTFS capabilities. If you need to both read and write NTFS from your Mac, you could install Paragon NTFS (https://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/). I've been using it for years on the various Macs that I own. It is paid software, but if this is just something you need in the short term, I believe it does have a 10 day trial period.