How should I format my backup drive?
 

I got a new 300 gig drive that I will use to backup audio data mostly (studio recordings).
The thing is, I come home with about 5gig of files every week, do some cutting, and back it up. I still use win for recording/mixing, so fat32 Might be convenient, I have no idea how well it's working with 300 gig drives, or how reliable it is. Reliability is important!

I read elsewhere that it is recommended to use more than one partition. I'd rather not. Does it really make sense in this case?

How about an encrypted file system? If it's complicated or inconvenient, forget it :confused: My stuff is not that sensitive.



(There are many howtos, but most describe partitioning while installing or partitioning a 10gig harddisk, I'm just thinking that things might have changed)

Thanks.

You can't. I think FAT32 has a 125GB limitation for partition. Also, with FAT32 you can't have files bigger then 4GG. If you need to a .iso out of 4.7 DVD you're in trouble. FAT32 also gets very defragmented. The only thing I've to say positvely about using FAT32 is that it will run without problems with virtually any Operating System(!).

Encryptation is simple. I recommend truecrypt:

http://www.truecrypt.org/

The file size limit for fat32 is 2GB. I don't know what the maximum partition size is, but you could, for example, divide the drive into 3 100GB partitions. There are different versions and extensions to fat32, and so "your mileage may vary".

Inferring from your post, it sounds like you are producing your own audio or music in raw audio format.
Consider a 100GB partition and a 200GB partition. Use Kdar to produce backups of the raw audio files. Use the 100GB for the raw files and the 200GB for the backups. The 200GB partition could use a journalized file system like reiserfs.

You could use the YaST partitioner to produce your partitions. You could then partition and create the filesystems, and create your mount points at the same time.

If you plan on keeping the disk at home, and merely copying the files to take back into work if you ever need to recover, format the drive as a journaled Linux filesystem. It's just data.
Pick something you feel comfortable with and go with it - ext3, Reiserfs, Reiser4, xfs, jfs ... each has it's adherents.

You don't say how you are going to use this drive. If it is an external usb drive, for example that you actually plug into the windows box to make the backups, then you need FAT32 or ntfs (dependant on what OS the windows computer is running). If you bring the backups home on some kind of other device/media and the 300GB drive is in your linux box, then it doesn't matter which FS you use on that disk, just as syg00 said.
BTW jschiwal- the maximum filesize for FAT32 is 4GB and the maximum disk size is 2TB. Have a read of this - http://info-x.co.uk/docview.asp?id=68
And maximum disk sizes below 2TB are controlled by the BIOS which can usually be flashed. I think a 48 bit addressing BIOS can handle disk sizes up to 144 Petabytes ! None of which is relevant to the issue at hand of course ;-)

I deliberatley stayed out of the FAT32 limit discussion. It is probably safe to say all the limits users bump into are imposed by Windows itself.
I think XP still uses a 16 bit Win98 driver module that limits partition size to 128 Gig - regardless of how large you make it under Linux.
Try allocating one bigger under Linux and see what XP thinks about it.
Isn't worth the agro to argue about what people think the filesystem architecture is capable of.

yeah syg00 I hear ya. But I run win98se as a tv box and I make recordings greater than 2 GB in single files, so I had to speak up ;-)

Oh sorry, I thought I already replied to this. (I'm pretty positive I have).
Anyways, I decided on reiserfs It is the the journaling-fs choice of my distribution, so I guess it makes sense. I googled for fat32 and linux. Seems like alot of people have trouble with it.

Because I wasn't shure. Having the possiblity to share with windows would have been nice, but not needed. It is bouild into my box for now, but I might put it in a usb-case - one beautyful day that anyone else I know has a system that can read it :rolleyes: