Hi,
I have a 240GB SSD drive with openSUSE 13.2 and decided
to remove it from my laptop and planning to connect it
to my router’s usb port using a sata to usb cable, to be accessed
by one machine with windows and the other machine with linux.
The ssd will be storing cad drawings from both windows & linux.
Now my question is, what is the best way and the kind of filesystem to
use.
Thanks in advance for your kind suggestions/advice.
On Thu, 13 Aug 2015 23:36:01 +0000, conram wrote:
> Now my question is, what is the best way and the kind of filesystem to
> use.
That you’re using it for a SAN on your router, it probably doesn’t matter
so much, as long as your SAMBA/CIFS functionality on your router can
access it.
The bottleneck is going to be the USB interface. If it’s USB, then it
might be the network instead.
Jim
–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
On 2015-08-14 01:36, conram wrote:
> Now my question is, what is the best way and the kind of filesystem to
> use.
That’s up to your router, not to you or us 
You will have to read your router documentation and see what it
supports. Then a choice can be made.
Many only support FAT, some also support NTFS. I would go for that one.
Few support Linux filesystems; if you are lucky to have that choice, I
would use it.
On the other hand, I would not waste an SSD in that configuration,
unless the router+disk-combo both support USB3. The SSD is very fast,
but USB is very slow. Better place there a large rotating disk for the
same price. Even a slow rotating disk will outperform USB. For the price
of the SSD, you can buy huge magnetic disks.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))
Hi,
Thanks for the suggestions.
Sorry my first post is not clear enough.
My router has two usb drive, one usb3 and the other is usb2.
The router is a netgear R6300 AC1750.
When I remove the ssd from my laptop, it has openSUSE 13.2
I plugged it in the router’s usb3 and the openSUSE 13.2 /home/user partition
which is ext.4. was recognized by linux (openSUSE 13.2) using the command "thunar smb:// blah. blah.blah
The root partition was not seen though.
I have also a 64gb usb3 thumb drive with fat32 that I connect to the router and reachable on both windows and linux.
Now, given the ssd has a larger storage if I decide to format it in fat32, do I have to format it as one partition or divide
it in like 2-3 partitions with fat32.
I want the drive to be read and writable on both worlds with no problem.
Thanks again for your kind replies.
On 2015-08-15 02:36, conram wrote:
> When I remove the ssd from my laptop, it has openSUSE 13.2
> I plugged it in the router’s usb3 and the openSUSE 13.2 /home/user
> partition
> which is ext.4. was recognized by linux (openSUSE 13.2) using the
> command "thunar smb:// blah. blah.blah
This is not clear. You are connecting the ssd to the router. Then you
say that it is “recognized by linux (openSUSE 13.2)”. What, the router
runs openSUSE? If it runs openSUSE, it is no surprise it recognizes
anything.
I guess not, so please clarify.
I’ll guess.
Or do you mean that the drive that you connect to the router, is
recognized remotely by another machine that runs openSUSE, using samba?
And then, that only the partition that was “/home” is exported by the
router, but not the “/” partition?
Well, guessing again, I suppose that “/” is formatted btrfs, so it is no
surprise the router does not see it. You could try formatting the entire
SSD as ext4, and then, maybe, the router recognizes it.
And you test and do this by reading that router documentation. It
probably has a web page for control and administration.
You have to clarify things. Do not make us make guesses. We don’t see
what you see.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))
What I mean is the ssd is recognizable by the linux machine
when it is connected to the router’s usb because it has the ext4 formatted.
The root partition is formatted as ext4 also.
But it is not important, I only state that because I want to show that the ssd is reachable
by the machines when it is connected to the router’s usb connection. That is why I set the usb thumb drive
as an example also to show that with fat32 both windows and linux is capable of read and write to the usb
thumb drive without problem.
To clarify how it is reachable from linux and windows.
Windows uses netgear ready share to reach the usb drive connected to the router and linux uses smb to
to connect to the same usb drive connected to the router.
Connection to the router usb is not the problem here in my query.
**The main concern here is, I am asking opinion how to rightfully format the 240gb ssd
**It should be read and writable from both windows and linux without limitations.
I hope I explained it properly. If I can put this ssd to work, at least I can getaway with
the slowness of my samba connection from my linux to windows machine.
Thanks again for the reply, hope replies will keep on coming.
On 2015-08-15 14:46, conram wrote:
> Connection to the router usb is not the problem here in my query.
> *The main concern here is, I am asking opinion how to rightfully format
> the 240gb ssd
> *It should be read and writable from both windows and linux without
> limitations.
Well, again, it is irrelevant.
What matters is what filesystems does the router support. What the
networked machines see is different, is a network filesystem that has
little or nothing to do with the actual filesystem.
If the router supports ext4, go for it. Windows will see it fine and
think it is a Windows filesystem. So will Linux, if you use samba.
/If/ the router supports NFS, then Linux will have access to Linux
attributes in the filesystem, allowing you to do Linux backups, or use
links.
If you want to use FAT on the disk, and you want to use FAT, then use
it. As large a partition as feasible. If the router supports NTFS, I
would use that instead.
It depends on what the router supports, and what you main usage is.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))
Well, I don’t get you too, you’re making it a bit complicated.
Just an advice on ssd formatting is the issue, forget about the router.
This is about ssd formatting not a router issue.
I thought that was clear. What matters is only what FS the router supports. To all connected OS’s they see what they expect to see because the Router does all the translation.
So use what ever the router likes it is totally up to what it supports not what OS’s are connected to it. Maybe you need to read up on SAN
Well, it should be simple to check the recommended/supported filesystems in the router manual…
Lacking that, i’d try first to format the drive as NTFS, as this will probably give you more compatibility if you move the drive afterwards to other systems as an external drive.
Second best IMO would be ext4 with writeback journalling and nodiratime option.
Third would be FAT (ex-FAT actually), as it’s blind on permissions and has size limitations.
You may also want to look on how to trim the SSD periodically, if necessary.
You started talking about a router. And about connecting the device to it. So everybody here thinks this is about NAS functionality of the router.
When you now say “Forget about the router”, can you then please reword your question, leaving out things that don’t matter? This to avoid confusion.
On 2015-08-16 20:06, hcvv wrote:
>
> conram;2724048 Wrote:
>>
>> This is about ssd formatting not a router issue.
> You started talking about a router. And about connecting the device to
> it. So everybody here thinks this is about NAS functionality of the
> router.
>
> When you now say “Forget about the router”, can you then please reword
> your question, leaving out things that don’t matter? This to avoid
> confusion.
Er… no, because it is really about the router
He appears to not understand our answers.
The question is about what format to use on an SSD disk that is
connected to the router, which acts as file server, so that the disk is
properly seen on other machines.
But the other machines will never see the disk itself; they will see the
translation to a networked filesystem, such as Samba or NFS.
It is only the router who has access to that disk format, thus the issue
is what filesystems does the router support
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)
Can you please let the OP speak for himself? I do not need you as interpreter. And I doubt he does.
On 2015-08-16 22:06, hcvv wrote:
> Can you please let the OP speak for himself? I do not need you as
> interpreter. And I doubt he does.
As you wish. There is no need to be that nasty about it. :-/
Others than me have said the same as I did above, though. You might
believe them, if you don’t believe me.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)