Unable to Write to NTFS Hard Drive After Big Sur Update

macos tips
1

I have a Seagate external hard drive formatted with NTFS, and I use NTFS for Mac to manage it. Before updating to the latest version of macOS Big Sur, I could read and write to the drive without any issues.

However, after the update, I can no longer write to the drive. To work around this, I purchased a second external hard drive, formatted it as macOS Extended (Journaled), and transferred all the data from the Seagate drive. Initially, the new drive functioned properly, but after my iMac entered hibernation, I could no longer access the data upon waking it up.

Two Questions:

  1. How can I restore write permissions on my Seagate NTFS-formatted drive?
  2. What is the best external hard drive for use with a Mac?
2

Hello, you should know the early macOS can read and write NTFS-formatted drive, but now most of Mac can’t write the NTFS file system.

For restoring write permissions on your NTFS-formatted drive, you’d better use NTFS drivers for Mac. iBoysoft NTFS for Mac is a good tool for you to write the drive seamlessly.

3
  1. Use macOS Terminal to enable NTFS write support.
  2. Reformat the drive but this will lose all the data.

For the best external hard drive for Mac, there is not any. You just need to remember the file system is more important than the brands. The APFS or the exFAT file system may be better.