Arch Linux

dejavu

Member

Registered: 2008-05-26

Posts: 103

data partition

hi @ all,

i know the problem was often discussed before, but i can't make a decision about the filesystem.
i wanna have a data partition on my laptop (about 20 gb) and on the external harddisk (about 200 gb).
the problem is, that i wanna access both partitions with linux and windows (read and write).

i have searched the web and all threads i have found were out of date.
so what do you think is the best decision?

ext3 --> on windows side ifs driver installation
fat32 --> i don't like it, but probably?
ntfs --> the new ntfs-3g driver sounds good

mainly i work on linux, but for example the external drive should work on other computers too.
i don't wanna split the data partition on the laptop, but probably on the external drive.

but the most important thing is that i won't get any data corruption.
and the second is the speed.

best wishes

carlocci

Member

From: Padova - Italy

Registered: 2008-02-12

Posts: 368

Re: data partition

ntfs, at least you are sure you can always at least read it from any computer
ext3 means you would have to install the driver everytime, which means downloading, which means interweb available (unless you create a small fat partition for the driver installation files)

In this twisted world closed specifications are more portable than open ones, duh.

Allan

Pacman

From: Brisbane, AU

Registered: 2007-06-09

Posts: 11,400

Website

Re: data partition

There is no way I could every be convinced that FAT would be a "good" choice for a 200Gb drive.  Sure it is the most portable, but the cluster sizes are quite large so if you have a lot of small files you waste a lot of space.

As carlocci pointed out, perhaps ntfs would be better for your external if you want to hook it up to many other machines (running windows).  For your laptop, I would go ext2/3 and install the driver on your windows partition.

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vogt

Member

From: Toronto, Canada

Registered: 2006-11-25

Posts: 389

Re: data partition

One problem with ntfs is that only windows has an ntfsck, so if the disk is not unmounted cleanly, is is best mounted by windows first, but you get the same issue with mounting ext2 on windows.

Either case is preferable to fat32, for performance, wasted space, and journaling (or lack thereof) issues.