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Old 05-27-2016, 02:49 PM   #1
actinide
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File-system for portable HDD


What is the best filesystem for a portable HDD cross compatible.
I'm using Linux Mint. My Portable HDDs are between 500GB to 2TB.
 
Old 05-27-2016, 03:01 PM   #2
Smokey_justme
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Just one is trully cross-compatible: exFAT, but NTFS should still provide enough compatibiliy....
 
Old 05-27-2016, 03:15 PM   #3
actinide
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Smokey I thought ext3 was cross compatible.
 
Old 05-27-2016, 03:17 PM   #4
suicidaleggroll
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Cross compatible with what? Windows? OSX? BSD?
 
Old 05-27-2016, 03:28 PM   #5
Smokey_justme
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Quote:
Originally Posted by actinide View Post
Smokey I thought ext3 was cross compatible.
Other OSs (that like putting the user in a sort-of-buble) exist, even if we like them or not.... Windozes exFAT or NTFS are the safest bet....
 
Old 05-27-2016, 04:27 PM   #6
michaelk
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The most compatible is FAT32 but it has a max 4GB file size limitation. I would say that any external hard of the size you posted would automatically be formatted as NTFS by the manufacture. The NTFS driver (ntfs-3g) is very stable and you should not have any trouble using for reading or writing. There are windows ext drivers but there are limitations and I prefer using NTFS over exFAT.
 
Old 05-28-2016, 08:11 AM   #7
jpollard
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In both cases (NTFS/exFAT) user identity is lost because ownership is not supported.
 
  


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