How do I mount ext2/ext3 partitions in Mac OS X Snow Leopard?

Question

Is there anything that will natively allow read/write on an ext2/3 partition within Snowie?

Just don't want to get a Linux box to mount, and then access via samba. Although I could perhaps through VMware Fusion … and then share it back…

Anyway to do this natively?

Solution 1

MacFUSE OSXFuse plus fuse-ext2

Note: fuse-ext2 was previously hosted at http://sourceforge.net/projects/fuse-ext2/.

Solution 2

You could also install either e2fsprogs or ext2fuse with macports.

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Don't think any mount commands are included with port's e2fsprogs. (Though there's fsck and the like.) But installing ext2fuse does do the trick!

Solution 3

fuse-ext2 works but is very slow (I get some 7 MB/s reading and 1 MB/s writing via USB 2.0).
If you have the choice, better use Apple's HFS+ on the external drive, which is much faster
(I get some 30 MB/s both reading and writing, both on Mac and Linux).

HFS+ is supported by Linux mostly out-of-the-box. To get write access even to a journaled partition on Ubuntu, install support via sudo apt-get install hfsprogs and when the drive is mounted (e.g., automatically), re-mount it writable using sudo mount -o remount,force,rw /mount/point

BTW, recently I suffered from a Mac OS crash apparently due to fuse-ext2
https://sourceforge.net/projects/fuse-ext2/forums/forum/787602/topic/6549364

Comments

[olafure]

MacFuse is no longer maintained

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

OSXFuse is a proper FUSE library, unlike MacFuse, and it is not only maintained, but it also provides a MacFUSE compatibility layer osxfuse.github.com

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

I've run dual-boot with a shared HFS+ partition for years. While the HFS+ option was fast, it was also not very reliable. If you want read/write access, you have to turn of the HFS+ journaling, and HFS+ will fully self-distruct from time to time without the journaling.

[Ninsuo]

fuse-ext2 link is broken. You can find it here.

[Barranka]

Just for information: I've installed both OSXFuse and Fuse-Ext2 on Mavericks, and there's no need to use the Terminal to mount the Ext2 disk... it is automatically recognized and mounted

[Per Lundberg]

Works well for me. One caveat: Remember to install the MacFUSE compatibility layer in OSXFuse, otherwise the shared library that fuse-ext2 uses will not be present => it won't work.