Are ext3 and reiserfs compatible?
 

Ive got an external HD that is a reiserfs filesystem.

I want to use Ext3 for my new linux install. Will the new linux using ext3 be able to read the existing data on an external Hard drive that is formatted with reiserfs?

Each file system type has it's own kernel module, but they can certainly co-exist, ie. the reiserfs module and the ext3 module can be loaded at the same time.

So, yes.

Brian

Will I be able to read the data on the external disk with it being reiserfs from a ext3 disk?

Yes, you'll be able to read/write data to/from any filesystem which has Linux support.

Thanks guys,
I was under the impression that it was like trying to read a fat32 disk from linux.

Perhaps you'd better explain that statement - what is your concern with either Vfat or reiser ?.

It is like trying to read a fat32 disk from Linux. Linux supports many different file system formats. Your whole system does not have to use the same file system type. Each partition can be a different file system type from the others.

So, you can set up your / partition as an ext3 file system. Then other partitions can be any other file system type that you want, including reiserfs or fat32.

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Steve Stites

One clarification to what has been said: fat filesystems do not support the permission and ownership attributes common to unix filesystems, so they are not useful for some things. But you can read and write to them just fine (after mounting them, of course).

Brian

When I do a new install of Linux, I am going to use Ext3, but I have an

external Hard Drive that is reiserfs.


Since they are two different filesystems, I was under the impression that

I would not be able to plug the external HD with the reiserfs file stystem

into the computer that will be ext3 and read it.

Will that work?

Thanks.

As we have already said twice, YES.

There is no such thing as an ext3 computer.ext3 is a filesystem format. I could set up my computer with /home as a reiserfs format, /var as jfs, root as ext3 (all on seperate partitions), and it would be fine. You will be able to read an external harddrive which is formatted with any filesystem supported by linux, and that certainly includes reiserfs, vfat, ntfs, ext2, ext3, jfs, xfs, etc.

Brian