Moving large photo archive from PC NTFS-Format to Mac

[Laura]

I'd appreciate some advice from anyone who's had experience moving an entire photo archive from an NTFS formatted external drive to a Mac Pro running Lion.  I have a four drive enclosure (Burley Port Multiplier, set up as JBOD) formatted in NTFS, holding my entire 350+GB archive (and a similarly sized archive backup) containing DNG, TIFF, PSD, and JPEG images.  I will be installing a PCI card on my Mac Pro to accommodate the enclosure's eSATA connector, but I can't get a straight answer from Apple as to the most reliable way to move the images on the enclosure to my Mac.  I intend to re-format the enclosure to Mac's HFS+ once I successfully move my archive to one of my Mac Pro drives.  I have DVD backups (88 or so of them), but I'd rather not move my archive by DVD, if there is an easier way. 

Here are my questions:
1. The Apple website says the Mac should recognize NTFS drives, but will see the NTFS files as "Read-Only."  If I plug the enclosure into the Mac and drag and drop the images from the enclosure to one of my Mac's drives, will they continue to be read-only? Apple support didn't know.   
2. Someone suggested I download Mac-NG, which is supposed to make Mac's read and write to NTFS formatted drives.  Has anyone tried this software?  How well does it work? 
3. I bought a Seagate for Mac (HFS+ formatted) portable 500 GB drive.  Seagate claims it has a special HFS+ driver for PC's that will allow the PC to use the Mac-formatted drive, thus allowing me to transfer my archive via the portable drive.  Has anyone tried this?  How did it work? 

Your feedback would be very helpful.  Thank you.
Laura

[Laura]

Must have been up too late last night.  Here's a correction on the name of the NTFS reading software:  The name of the software is Tuxera NTFS-3g for Mac OS X.  Does anyone have experience with this?  The free version does not work with Lion.  I'm looking at their latest version, supposed to be compatible with Lion, version 2001.4.2.  Thank you again for any help you can provide. 
Laura

[Laura]

Just an update.  I installed Seagate's special HFS+ driver on my Windows Vista PC.  With the driver, I was able to use the Mac-formatted GoFlex on my PC to transfer files to my Mac.  Also, the Mac did recognize the NTFS drives in my enclosure, once the PCI card was installed and the enclosure plugged into the eSATA ports.  I was able to move the files from the NTFS drives via Chronosync to my Mac, and I had full read/write privileges once the files were on the Mac.  I then reformatted the drives, using the instructions from Peter's excellent video on DPBestFlow.  So, I am up and running.  I'm not sure why Apple support wasn't more helpful.  Also, if anyone is moving Lightroom from PC to Mac, check out the Lightroom Queen in the UK.  She has excellent, step by step instructions online for moving LR presets and the like to your new Mac. 

Laura