hard drive format for movie server

mmartine · 02-16-2008, 03:24 PM

I would like to create a video library and play my movies to my large screen tv from my PC or mac if necessary.
I have several large sata hard drives and need to know how I should approach this.
Should I format the hard drives in fat32?
What is the file format I should create/store videos in? (iso,avi)

Thanks,

lazlow · 02-16-2008, 04:25 PM

As long as you are using Linux I would stick with ext3.

If you want to be able to reburn the DVD's stick with the ISOs. If you want best quality for the space use x264.

jschiwal · 02-16-2008, 05:14 PM

Look on google for filesystem comparison pages. Ext3 and Reiserfs are more robust but another filesystem like xfs or jfs may be better tuned to serve large files. Fat32 is a bad choice because of a 2 or 4 GB filesize limit. I think that smb also has filesize limit. If the server's store is networked, nfs may be a better choice.

Samotnik · 02-16-2008, 05:21 PM

XFS filesystem was created for this particular use.

Ryptyde · 02-16-2008, 06:01 PM

Use NTFS>4GB save as .iso's. I have a video library that is used between Linux and Windows without issues.

arijit_2404 · 02-16-2008, 10:10 PM

I vote for XFS, JFS. They both perform well in case of directory with many files, large files.

mmartine · 02-17-2008, 11:05 PM

I want to thank everyone for their input here.
I opted for xfs to store .iso files.

Does anyone know of a project/link for this purpose.
I would like to keep it as simple as possible.
I have both Linux and XP but would prefer using Linux if possible.

Thanks again