Which filesystem for usb stick?

[Wudu]

Hello!

Which filesystem is the best choice for a (8 or 16 GB and greater) usb stick?

It has to work on (K)ubuntu and Windows XP/7.

I know FAT/FAT32 but these limit the filesize to 4 GB, which is a problem with vbox-images and anything like this.
I don't know how far NTFS is supported by Kubuntu? I heard something about reading is no problem, writing is not 100% reliable?!? Or is this "old" knowledge?

Ext2/3 would be ok, but i think Windows does have problems with it. It should work out-of-the-box, i know there are ext2/3 drivers available for windows.

Any ideas?

Greetings Wudu

[josefko]

Re: Which filesystem for usb stick?

NTFS
Reliable for reading and writing in Kubuntu
You cannot backup whole Kubuntu system on it
You cannot use some special characters in file and folder names like |
Sometimes there are problems to unmount it in Windows If it behaves the same as USB external disks.

Ext2
Ext3 is not necessary
You can use Windows drivers for it, for example EXT2 IFS, no problems
You need to install driver before using it on some computer

I would prefer Ext2 if you need it for only limited amount of Windows computers

[dibl]

Re: Which filesystem for usb stick?

Yes, josefko has said it correctly.

Also, for NTFS, see: http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3084679.0

The read/write speed of the flash media on the USB stick is far slower than a hard drive or SSD. Also, it has a more limited lifetime number of write cycles. For both these reasons, the journaling of NTFS or ext3 filesystems is undesirable -- it both slows down the performance and creates nearly constant writing to a specific location on the media, increasing wear at that point dramatically. This means that FAT32 or ext2 are the best choice, if you can live with either one.

It is possible, by manual mounting, to use an ext3 filesystem with a "commit=xx" mount option, where "xx" is a number of seconds that is substantially longer than the default 5-second journal commit time. For example, commit=90 would give you a 90-second interval between journal writes. The only risk, and thing to remember, is you HAVE to use "safely remove" or the "sync" command in the console, before removing a stick that is mounted with such an option, or you will lose data. Kinda clunky, compared to just inserting the stick and letting HAL deal with it. And I don't think it's a workable option for Windows.

[josefko]

Re: Which filesystem for usb stick?

One might expect, that NTFS on USB disk in Windows works out of the box, but sometimes is necessary to do these steps to see the message - you can safely remove ...:
1. Check if there is not some process connected (Install Process Explorer - Menu Find - Find handle f:\ for disk f
2. Check if there is not a trash connected (Trash - properties - configure drives independently - Do not remove files to the Recycle bin)
3. Check if there is not System restore on USB disk (My Computer - Properties - System Restore - Turn off System Restore at least for USB disk)
4. Check if there is not indexing (My Computer - Open - on USB disk Properties - do not allow Indexing Services
5. Try to restart Explorer (Ctrl+Alt+Del - Task Manager - Processes - Kill explorer, File new task run explorer - it's something like restart plasma)
6. If nothing helps try shutdown or just unsafely remove the disk and after that run chkdsk.