Read ext4 drive from MacOS Sonoma?

I have a NAS box that's not working. Using my Macbook Pro 2019 (Intel CPU) I want to read the individual files (they're mirrored volumes, not stripe-RAIded, so any one drive from that NAS box should hold all the files I need) and write them off to a Sonoma-supported drive. But the drives use the ext4 file system, which the Mac doesn't support.


I tried "Linux Reader for Windows" running in the Windows VM, but that VM only sees drives the MAC host can identify...so Linux Reader won't see any ext4 drives.


I need a good simple utility that runs on the Mac...all I need is to read the files.


I can't seem to find whether Paragon's extFS utility supports the Sonoma OS. Any experience with it? Or is there another straightforward utility that would work, to read off these files so I can save them elsewhere? Thanks in advance..

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 14.6

Posted on Dec 7, 2024 1:35 PM

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10 replies

Dec 7, 2024 5:49 PM in response to BobHarris

BobHarris wrote:

FUSE ext4 support
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2024/mounting-ext4-linux-usb-drive-on-macos-2024

I was looking at MacFUSE and ntfs-3g the other day to see if it would be an option for someone, but I don't think either one are well supported on recents versions of macOS these days. In the comments section of the article you linked, someone mentioned an alternative to MacFUSE. I looked into that, but it appears it may have a major data destroying bug. I don't think that project is far enough along since it takes years to work out the bugs for a file system utility. I saw enough to scare me away from them, sorry I don't recall the specific details.


Dec 7, 2024 3:06 PM in response to dialabrain

Thanks...there was another Paragon site I saw (although it could have been a download-specific site of some kind) that seemed to specifically call out Sequoia but no other...and at least one review I saw seemed claimed that Sonoma was problematic. But if you found what you found, I guess I can always take issue with them if it doesn't prove to be true. Thanks Diala.

Dec 7, 2024 3:58 PM in response to dialabrain

Yes, I just now sent them an email. They mention "up through Sequoia" and "compatible with M1.M2.M3," but that almost suggests that they might not support the Intel-based Macs. So I've asked them about that and will probably have to wait a few days to hear back.


Issuing "diskutil list" in a terminal does show the drive, which tells me the HW can detect it. So I'm hoping that Paragon's utility will work on my machine and will be able to navigate the drive's TOC and file structure...but I will still wait for Paragon to confirm before buying.


Thanks again for your thoughts on this. I'm surely not the first to have wrestled with this, but throughout my engr career I was always a HW guy, and so I do prefer to seek out and use any easy packaged-up solutions the software crowd has come up with for such issues...rather than pretending I know enough to code something up that works and doesn't lose data...because I don't. : )

Dec 7, 2024 6:08 PM in response to dialabrain

Yes, trying the 10-day trial now. Seems a bit obtuse...the "verify" feature seemed to complete (evidently verified the file structure of the whole 2TB), but then actually navigating that file structure...well I can't see where (or if) it is made available to me. Not sure the volume is actually mounted...working on it... : ) Sure hope it works because it'd be a pretty convenient backup capability for when NAS boxes fail at the system level.

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Read ext4 drive from MacOS Sonoma?

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