Make NFTS USB drive writable on Mac OS

A USB drive, like external HDD, with NTFS is read only on Mac. Different approaches are discussed on internet. One approach is to use commercial software. Another approach is to install open-source software osxfuse. Have not tried commercial software. osxfuse does not work, because a requirement component, ntfs-3g (dated 2010-5-22) is not compatible with Mac OS X El Capitan (10.11.6).

I found the approach suggested in the following page the easiest, it works on El Capitan (10.11.6) perfectly. 

http://macdrug.com/free-ntfs-read-and-write-solutions-in-mac-os-x-el-capitan-or-older/

In the blog, I shamelessly copy the information from that page. All credit goes to the original author.

1. Change the drive label, if it has space

I do not know how to do it on Mac OS. I did it on Ubuntu. On Ubuntu, it is pretty simple, if the USB drive has NTFS.

$ sudo ntfslabel /dev/sdb2 <new_label_name>

2. Add write permission

Plug in the drive to Mac. This time you should see the drive of new name under "Devices" in Finder.

Edit file /etc/fstab, and add the following line. If the file does not exist, create the file.

LABEL=<new_label_name> none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse

After the file is saved, eject the drive and plug in the drive. This time the drive will not appear under "Devices" in Finder, but it can be found in folder "/Volumes".

If you think this is not convenient to access, you can create an alias to the drive using the following command. Now it will be listed under your home directory. However, if the drive is removed, the alias still exists, but it is invalid.

$ ln -s /Volumes/<new_label_name> ~/<new_label_name>