which FS for 1TB usb backup drive?
 

Hi guys,

I just got a 1TB external usb hard drive to backup my comedy shows.

On my smaller usb 'pen' drives, I set the file system to ext2 (occasional reads/writes) , but should I do the same for this bigger and more frequently acessed drive? (daily read/ocassional writes), should I go with EXT3 for the journaling?

Also, regarding security, I was thinking about making the drive writable only by root, so that when I mount the drive as a normal user, which will be for a few hours daily, if someone does get onto my system they couldnt write to the drive from my user account. That should just be a simple case of setting the device to 755 (and owner=root) should it not?

Yes, definitely! Think about it, this your backup drive, your failsafe device, so to say. IMHO backup drives should be as robust as possible. Unless you do not value your data. But then again, why back it up in the first place?
So journaling is the way to go.

[EDIT]
This is the way how I to set up my backup drive, too. To further minimize the risks I copy the files I need to work with to my home directory and detach the drive. This way it is only attached and hence exposed to possible risks only for a couple of minutes. Afterwards you can delete the files.

Big files, big drive - ext4 (not ext3) would be the recommendation these days.

Thanks guys.

If I were to use ext3/4 on an external disk that gets connected after boot, would I need to run the journal checks on the drive manually? or would the drive know when to do it? (like if it was connected at boot time?).

That is determined by the number of mounts - regardless of when. Automagic.

Ah ok, so I would set the drive up in fstab to check the drive, but would I get any indication that the drive is being checked? or could I just continue to use the drive while it was checking?

NTFS is also a good idea since linux nowadays supports it. Besides its accessible on windows if needed some day.