sharing an external drive between Linux and Windows

Hi Everyone,

I was wondering what the best way to do this is? Here is the idea...

Server has 60gb drive for OS / programs and 2 x 2TB drives for data. I will have all of my windows computers, etc. save directly to the first 2TB drive. Then, I will have the second 2TB drive periodically sync and copy the files/data from the first 2TB drive to act as an internal backup. Then I want to use an external hard drive as a 3rd and offline backup that I would conduct manually every so often.

Now, my problem is, I'm not sure which filesystem is best to use for sharing the external hard drive between linux and windows. I'm leaning towards NTFS, but I've been told that Linux doesn't read/use metadata and permissions and can cause problems when modifying files.... ?

Also, I am running Debian Squeeze. And, there is the potential for files larger than 4GB so FAT is not an option. I hope to be backing up databases for web design and understand they can be pretty large. (Well, I was just told databases... not necessarily databases for web design.)

Any help/comments/suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

The normal soln to storing MS files on Linux is to use the Linux FS eg ext4 and go via the Samba service.
Eg Chap 19 http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_boo...ion/index.html

I'd think that NTFS would be the WORST choice.....

I've had good experience with ext2fsd----allows Windows to read/write ext2 and ext3:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsd/

Originally Posted by chrism01 The normal soln to storing MS files on Linux is to use the Linux FS eg ext4 and go via the Samba service. Eg Chap 19 http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_boo...ion/index.html

Samba has been referred to me several times before. I plan to use it (or something similar) for the computers to write to. The scenario I have in mind is this... I have all of the data on the server. Perhaps one day the server goes down or I just decide to shut it down and reinstall Windows... I want to have an external drive as an offline backup of the data so I can load it onto my windows PC in case something happens to the linux PC. So I need the external hard drive to be compatible with both OSs.

---------- Post added 11-28-12 at 01:36 PM ----------

Originally Posted by pixellany I'd think that NTFS would be the WORST choice..... I've had good experience with ext2fsd----allows Windows to read/write ext2 and ext3: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsd/

Thanks. I'll have to check into it..