External hard drive format

**TaraIkeda** · 01-Jul-2009, 11:20

Alright here is my next issue, I have this external here that I use for both windows and Linux.
But I need help deciding what format I should put on it.
I need something stable yet works well with both XP and linux.
But heres the problem, I tried ext3 on it and well its not as good as it is on my actual linux install.
I also tried NTFS, but it fragments fast so its a terrible FS for externals (much less as a full FS)
Should I just re format it to Fat32 despite all the obvious setbacks?
Try something like ext2, as I do have the fsdriver for windows to allow it to read ext drives...
I just wish there were more options here as it seems none of the other filesystems would be friendly to my XP machine...
Not XFS, not Reiser, not JFS...
I looked them up and none have a tool for XP to use them, its also the same reason why I dont plan on using EXT4

**ken_yap** · 01-Jul-2009, 11:44

The reason ext3 isn't doing as well as on the internal HD is due to the bandwidth of the USB connection and the electronics between the USB and the HD. ext2 would be similar in performance, it's basically ext3 minus the journal. It would be better than FAT if you don't want NTFS. Just remember that ext2 (and other native Linux filesystems) do store ownership and permissions per file, so get those right.

ab · 01-Jul-2009, 12:10

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The only options you have are NTFS and fat32 to have any reliability. In
theory ext2/ext3 works on windows if you add the extra driver for it but
I've never tried it and if you are having issues with reliability then
that's not great. Submit an enhancement request to support half of the
filesystems everybody else does. ;-)

For the record on my drive I've had forever I still use Reiser but I also
do not have to work with OS's that can't support anything.

Good luck.

TaraIkeda wrote:
> Alright here is my next issue, I have this external here that I use for
> both windows and Linux.
> But I need help deciding what format I should put on it.
> I need something stable yet works well with both XP and linux.
> But heres the problem, I tried ext3 on it and well its not as good as
> it is on my actual linux install.
> I also tried NTFS, but it fragments fast so its a terrible FS for
> externals (much less as a full FS)
> Should I just re format it to Fat32 despite all the obvious setbacks?
> Try something like ext2, as I do have the fsdriver for windows to allow
> it to read ext drives...
> I just wish there were more options here as it seems none of the other
> filesystems would be friendly to my XP machine...
> Not XFS, not Reiser, not JFS...
> I looked them up and none have a tool for XP to use them, its also the
> same reason why I dont plan on using EXT4
>
>
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**TaraIkeda** · 02-Jul-2009, 16:22

So you guys say my options for this are even smaller then I thought?
I just dread using NTFS as I would have to defrag it often and I would need XP to do that and we are only using XP sparingly...
Sigh, I wish there was a way to read more filesystems on XP...
I know I could format my external to another FS but what one to use makes it difficult.

**ken_yap** · 02-Jul-2009, 16:49

You could put your HD in a network drive housing and then it becomes available to all machines on your LAN, generally via Samba, NFS or FTP. But that costs more and the cheapo housings have mediocre performance.

What's wrong with NTFS? Are you going to be doing so much file traffic that it will get fragmented badly? If you don't use it often, you won't have to defrag often. It's not as if it will get fragmented while it's not in use.

**TaraIkeda** · 02-Jul-2009, 17:00

I dont think making it a network drive is feasible as its a WD My Passport USB drive.
As for NTFS, we use this external for a LOT of file transfer so we have to be cautious on what we use.
My Husband needs it for work too, luckily he can still use a EXT drive because his company is linux friendly.
But he needs windows compatibility too.

**TaraIkeda** · 02-Jul-2009, 20:26

Alright I looked around on the web a bit and have read that EXT2 might suit me, but I never worked with it before.
I have worked with NTFS, FAT32, EXT3 and XFS so I know them best.
How do you guys feel about EXT2?
I mean its gotta be better then FAT32

**ken_yap** · 02-Jul-2009, 20:47

Like I said, ext2 is just ext3 without the journal, so you won't see much difference on the Linux end, unless you are in the habit of pulling the plug while the filesystem is mounted, requiring a fsck next mount. You'd have to judge for yourself what the Windows ext2 driver is like.

**TaraIkeda** · 02-Jul-2009, 20:52

Trust me I take care of my drive so no worries there.
I will probably reformat it a little later, I installed Gparted for the job as I am most familiar with it.
I didnt play around with the OpenSuse installer so I am just going with Gparted for now.
It will do.

**pimanac** · 08-Jul-2009, 16:10

In my own experience, id reccomend FAT32 (Hate to say it) -- Drivers for both OS's are definately stable...and you wont have to worry about installing drivers on the windows machine in order to read the file system...then installing drivers on another windows machine if you decide to move the external drive around (the Raison d'�tre for external drives)...to me it would just be a hassle.
As for NTFS on linux -- i know in the past the driver was not %100 reliable when in read/write mode (worked fine in read only mode), but I have not looked tried using the NTFS driver in several years--so i defer to the experts in the forum for that question!