There seem to be no posts on this subject later than about 2012.
The hardware has changed so much to 2018 that I now have some questions.

Searching shows current external hard drives based on 2.5-inch internals range through about 320GByte, with most around 2TByte, and now some at 4TByte and 5TByte. USB3 is presently the norm, backwards compatible, and some now have the fast "Thunderbolt" connector.

Throughout, they are listed as Windows (up to W10) and MacOs "compatible, with no mention of Linux. Many come with ready made partition apps that do "backup", and "backup to cloud" and "directly download from social media apps" etc.

Examples are Seagate's offerings, called either "Expansion" or "Backup Plus", which seem to have the identical drive in there, but some small differences in the amount of chips on the circuit board. Western Digital have drives, but with other varied "interface app" features. There are several more brands!

One expects that plugging in to a USB3 port on a PC or laptop running (say) Linux Mint 18 will bring up something, but if, as in the Seagate case, there is a extra partition in there loaded with software that normally runs automatically, and sits between the user and what looks like either "drive space" and "cloud space" it leads to the question(s):

* Is it still OK, as root, to use some tool like GParted, or fdisk to simply delete the partitions and re-partition?

I ask this because in the case of USB flash drives, there may be various wear leveling arrangements that may require built-in software apps to run.
Some are not transparent to the interface. In the case of the spinning type hard drives, there is always some local cache memory, and inbuilt software to work them. I have been away from Windows for too long now to know whether they need "drivers". At this point, I would say much thanks to those kernel-makers who somehow have freed us from "driver hell".

* What should be the suitable new partition type formatted?
* If a Linux format, should it be journalling - like EXT4?
* If there is to be a possibility the external drive would be plugged into a Windows computer for file transfer, then is NTFS still OK? Flash drive USBs use FAT32 for Windows-Linux usefulness.

Thanks if someone can help in choosing external USB kit for Linux machines.

1. Every normal USB 3 drive should work without any problem - I would choose a 2.5" drive from WD. Like WD Elements.
2. A single partition for backup and rsync for "syncing" the drives
3. If you use the drive only for Linux, then ext4
4. If you want to use the drive under Windows, too, then the filesystem should be NTFS

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Most, if not all, external drives will work with Linux (& BSD, which is what a Mac is based on) - I've never come across one that couldn't be reformatted for Linux.

If it's a big drive, use ext4, (possibly NTFS if you must connect to that other system).

Using ext2 on smaller drives is OK, but it's usually better to just remove the reserved space on an ext4, depends whether you are just transferring files or storing them longer term.

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with all of the compatible with Win10 and MAC is because they, the powers that make the HDD's do not consider Linux I do suppose, that is a marketing ploy to make people feel safe and trusting of their product so when they see that it will hopefully persuaded them to buy their product, that is called "product psychology" , as WIN and MAC are the most used OS'es, and you can see it working on you as well. as you did not see that saying compatible with Linux, so you are not trusting it to the point that because you have a need or desire for this object (the hdd) to be satisfied and without trust being established your ID is still causing you to search in order to satisfy that need or desire so much that it caused you to post about it. applied psychology, cause and effects.

I've never had an issue with using the external or internal HDDS in a USB Port (2.0 or 3.0) and formatted to ext4 or NTFS and used on Linux, ever.

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You have a few issues.

One is if the hardware will support the device in any OS.
Two is the connection type. If usb 3 then you may in some odd instances need a chipset driver.
Three is bios. Does bios support the size of drive.
Might be some power issues on some of these if not powered externally.

For the most part, I'd be surprised that a common big name external drive wouldn't connect.


" Is it still OK, as root, to use some tool like GParted, or fdisk to simply delete the partitions and re-partition?"

Yes if current. Some older tools may not fully support modern features like GPT.

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All that included software is trash, and yes, those particular software things they include are Windows specific programs and only compatible with Windows. But who cares, it's bullshit, pardon my language.

That kind of software is included for suckers, and is best avoided.

The disks themselves are ofcourse compatible with any system that support USB and harddrives, including ofcourse GNU/Linux.

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I've got various USB HDDs drives from Seagate, WD, Toshiba, and HGST, 500 GB - 2TB, some USB2, some USB3. All work just fine with Linux. I generally use ext2fsd on Windows to access the ext4 partitions on the external drives, but I've also got a few NTFS partitions scattered among the externals

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Like RockDoctor, I've had USB drives from various manufacturers and not had a problem with any of them. Currently, I have five Passports, a Toshiba, and an Iomega of various ages and vintages, as well as several thumb drives.

I don't think this is much of an issue these days.

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