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difference betwee ntfs and ntfs-3g

in my /etc/fstab file my windows drives are mounted as ntfs partitions..
/dev/sda1 /media/sda1 ntfs defaults,umask=000 0 0
i wonder,should i change the filesystem type as ntfs-3g?
what is its advantage or disadvantage over ntfs ???

My understanding is the ntfs-3g driver has read-write capabilities; the ntfs one only read.

So long as the appropriate packages are installed, you should be good to go.

ntfs-3g is 'filesystem driver' for ntfs file systems, it is very reliable and allows read AND write access to ntfs volumes. If I remember correctly 'ntfs' driver is read only, anyway if you only need read access then stick to 'ntfs', for writing I would only use ntfs-3g.

Quote:

Originally Posted by comm2k (Post 3341757)

i can read-write both with just ntfs driver
i have set umask=000
ie all permissions are given for user,group and others

Quoted from the kernel menuconfig help for ntfs:

Quote:

CONFIG_NTFS_FS:

NTFS is the file system of Microsoft Windows NT, 2000, XP and 2003.

Saying Y or M here enables read support. There is partial, but
safe, write support available. For write support you must also
say Y to "NTFS write support" below.

There are also a number of user-space tools available, called
ntfsprogs. These include ntfsundelete and ntfsresize, that work
without NTFS support enabled in the kernel.

This is a rewrite from scratch of Linux NTFS support and replaced
the old NTFS code starting with Linux 2.5.11. A backport to
the Linux 2.4 kernel series is separately available as a patch
from the project web site.

For more information see <file:Documentation/filesystems/ntfs.txt>
and <http://www.linux-ntfs.org/doku.php>.

To compile this file system support as a module, choose M here: the
module will be called ntfs.

If you are not using Windows NT, 2000, XP or 2003 in addition to
Linux on your computer it is safe to say N.

Symbol: NTFS_FS [=n]
Prompt: NTFS file system support
Defined at fs/Kconfig:821
Depends on: BLOCK
Location:
-> File systems
-> DOS/FAT/NT Filesystems
Selects: NLS

Safe, but partial support only, and, in the corresponding README file you can see what the limitations are:

Quote:

- This is a complete rewrite of the NTFS driver that used to be in the 2.4 and
earlier kernels. This new driver implements NTFS read support and is
functionally equivalent to the old ntfs driver and it also implements limited
write support. The biggest limitation at present is that files/directories
cannot be created or deleted. See below for the list of write features that
are so far supported. Another limitation is that writing to compressed files
is not implemented at all. Also, neither read nor write access to encrypted
files is so far implemented.

So, in which regards me: no, the ntfs kernel driver has not write support. At most, you can modify existing files. This is from the latest stable kernel, which today is 2.6.27.6

but beleive me...i am able to write in my windows partitions through ntfs only...
!!!!!

i have dmask set to 000
which gives any user of linux full access(r/rw) to windows ntfs partitions

Quote:

Originally Posted by ritam_bkp (Post 3341791)

but beleive me...i am able to write in my windows partitions through ntfs only...
!!!!!

If that's right and you are truly using the in-kernel ntfs driver then that would mean that the kernel documentation is either lying or outdated.

I am compiling gcc right now, when that's done (hopefully 1 hour or so) I will compile the ntfs tools and test this on a loopback filesystem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ritam_bkp (Post 3341791)

but beleive me...i am able to write in my windows partitions through ntfs only...
!!!!!

I read that Ubuntu *says* it's using the ntfs driver, whereas in fact, it's using the ntfs-3g driver. Are you using Ubuntu?

Ubuntu, Fedora and some other distributions use NTFS-3G for both the ntfs and ntfs-3g filesystem type for better backwards compatibility.

That would definitely explain it. I created a loopback file system into a file on my home, formatter it with ntfs, and mounted it. I wasn't able to create anything on it, though the logs show how it was mounted R/W. So I must assume that you are using ntfs-3g or/and a custom kernel patchset for the ntfs stuff.

I also tried to force my ntfs file system to read-write with the ntfs driver, and I was still unable to write anything.