NTFS vs any linux file system
 

Hey LQ,

I've got a 2tb Nasware harddrive (NTFS) in my workstation (Win7-64) that holds a bunch of tar.gz files. These tar.gz files originate from an external backup machine that is running some version of Ubuntu Server. I have been manually moving these tar.gz files from the back up machine using WinSCP to my workstation 2tb disk.

The back up machine will now be leaving my office and going to the clients, so I need to move this 2tb disk into the back up machine before it leaves.

My questions is, is it worth moving all of those back ups to another disk, formatting the 2tb disk with a linux file system (of your personal suggestion) and then moving all of the back ups back onto to the 2tb disk?

The best linux file system for my specific use would be any that is known to last a very long time, capable of storing 2tb, speed is not an issue. I was thinking ext3.

Any tips/thoughts?

If I am understanding correctly you want to use the 2TB drive with your Ubuntu backup server exclusively now and will not use it with Windows again? If so, then ext4 is probably the default choice -- it's the "new, improved" ext3 and seems pretty well used.
Of course in formatting the drive you wipe it and once it's formatted anything but fat32 or NTFS it becomes a lot harder to access it with Windows if it can be accessed at all.

Yes, that is exactly what I'd like to do. So would you say it's worth switching from NTFS to ext4 then?

ext4 ought to be a lot more stable under Linux than NTFS but, of course, you give up being able to accesses it from Windows (at least quite so easily). Whether there are better file systems than ext4 to choose I'm not in a position to say.

Apologies, I forgot something very important. If you move your files to ext4 [or any other linux file system] you'll lose the NTFS permissions. It's also possible that you'll lose any alternate streams though it's unlikely you'll be using any.

Thank you. I shall heed your advice.

There are a number of very solid file systems that work in Linux. Ext4, btrfs, zfs, all work fine for data. I personally see no reason not to use ext4 for generic data that's not in a critical environment or one that needs future scaling.

Here is a bit of info. http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/33552...ld-you-choose/


I'd think that XFS is the best choice if these files are large.

Ext3 or 4 is pretty common for backup use.

If you intend to use some file system features then consider ZFS or Btrfs.

Kind if rare to use NTFS as normal linux be isn't as bad as some web pages may suggest. It is pretty stable and stable for read only mount.