Just got WD Black 4TB portable HD - should i format to exFAT for Linux and Plex?

breadbin · 02-13-2018, 02:00 PM

Well like the title says what is the best way to use this hard disk in Linux for a plex server? I currently use my laptop as a plex server, its quiet and powerful enough to stream movies on. It's pretty much always on and has been working great so far. I run Linux Mint 18 exclusively on it.

If I add the hard disk to use it as the storage for the plex server should I reformat it to EXT4, exFAT or leave it as is. I presume it is NTFS as it's only compatible with Windows on the box. It works with Mint straight out of the box so I'm kind of thinking to leave it but worried if there might be any pitfalls in the future?

thanks

CowPi3 · 02-13-2018, 02:05 PM

Hi breadbin,

What OS are you planning on using to put files on the HDD?

Brains · 02-13-2018, 02:54 PM

I would leave it with NTFS, EXT4 won't work out of the box if you need to plug in another Windows only computer. exFAT does not support Journaling. All OS's support NTFS including MAC, not necessarily out of the box but most often do.

schneidz · 02-13-2018, 03:23 PM

my vote is for ext. i duel boot but when i went into linux to fix something in steam i got messages about how the ntfs wasnt shutdown properly and had to be read-only.

syg00 · 02-13-2018, 03:41 PM

If it is only to be used on Linux, use a Linux native filesystem. I keep my NTFS exposure to filesystems that will be physically plugged into a Windows box at some regularity.
NTFS is proprietary and if it breaks you need to use a Win machine to fix it. That then exposes you to unclean close if the Win machine uses fast start. If you can avoid NTFS as a day-to-day filesystem, do so.

jefro · 02-13-2018, 04:21 PM

XFS or EXT4 would be my choice.

It could be default exfat but more likely it's ntfs.

breadbin · 02-13-2018, 06:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jefro

XFS or EXT4 would be my choice.

It could be default exfat but more likely it's ntfs.

I just checked it there with

Code:

df -T

and it says fuseblk and then with

Code:

sudo blkid

it says it is 'ntfs' so I guess it's ntfs!

jefro · 02-13-2018, 08:40 PM

Good going.

More ways too. https://www.tecmint.com/find-linux-filesystem-type/

Shadow_7 · 02-13-2018, 09:00 PM

I recently got a WD Red 4TB and formatted it GPT with ext4. But I don't plex. And most storage things that I do are local and linux based.

schneidz · 02-14-2018, 07:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jefro

Good going.

More ways too. https://www.tecmint.com/find-linux-filesystem-type/

interesting, i always thought that

Code:

fdisk -l

was the prescribed way.

jefro · 02-14-2018, 04:27 PM

Should work too.

A lot of linux tools get information from the same place if you peek inside the programs.

Mike_Walsh · 02-15-2018, 02:40 AM

Quote:

A lot of linux tools get information from the same place if you peek inside the programs.

Agree with Jefro, here. I don't think there IS any such thing as a 'correct, prescribed way' to do things in Linux.....simply because it's incredibly versatile, and has so many different ways to achieve any desired outcome.

I'm something of a heretic, I'm afraid; I never do things simply because it's the 'accepted' way to do them. If a method works for my purposes, then I'll use it. (I rather doubt I'd ever make it as a sysadmin, mind, but.....there you go.)

My personal favourite for this?

Code:

blkid

.....because it shows every partition attached to the system, along with file-system types and also UUIDs. (Which has its uses.)

Mike.

schneidz · 02-15-2018, 07:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jefro

Should work too.

A lot of linux tools get information from the same place if you peek inside the programs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike_Walsh

Agree with Jefro, here. I don't think there IS any such thing as a 'correct, prescribed way' to do things in Linux.....simply because it's incredibly versatile, and has so many different ways to achieve any desired outcome.

I'm something of a heretic, I'm afraid; I never do things simply because it's the 'accepted' way to do them. If a method works for my purposes, then I'll use it. (I rather doubt I'd ever make it as a sysadmin, though.....would I ??)

My personal favourite for this?

Code:

blkid

.....because it shows every partition attached to the system, along with file-system types and also UUIDs. (Which has its uses.)

Mike.

yeah, i was just surprised that a list of 7 ways to determine the file system type in linux didnt contain what i used to think was the most popular way ?

breadbin · 02-15-2018, 11:11 AM

i tried fdisk -l but it doesn't mention 'ntfs' anywhere

Code:

Disk /dev/sdb: 3.7 TiB, 4000752599040 bytes, 7813969920 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 45DD2B6D-25AA-4C0E-B54A-9FE431C6E9BB

Device     Start        End    Sectors  Size Type
/dev/sdb1   2048 7813967871 7813965824  3.7T Microsoft basic data

'microsoft basic data' seems to be about as descriptive as it gets.

schneidz · 02-15-2018, 01:32 PM

^ +1. i get the same

Code:

[schneidz@xbmc ~]$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 264C98CF-FCEF-4ED6-B98A-E99A835AB90D

Device         Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1       2048     206847     204800   100M EFI System
/dev/sda2     206848     239615      32768    16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/sda3     239616  314094130  313854515 149.7G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda4  314095616  315836415    1740800   850M Windows recovery environment
/dev/sda5  315836416  417372159  101535744  48.4G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda6  417372160 1953519615 1536147456 732.5G Linux filesystem

i guess in my case since i knew i was looking for an ntfs partition, i just substituted microsoft to ntfs in my mind.

i withdraw my earlier comment.