[Done]Question: Filesystem type for DATA?

[bhamm77]

Have recently set up my dual boot system (Karmic & WinXP) with a seperate partition for the home folder. I used ext 3 for /home.

Currently using ext2ifs to read/write to my linux partitions from windows. ext2ifs doesn't like my ext3 partitions. They will show up in windows using ext2ifs, but I cannot access them, although I'm supposed to be able to. I'm not really experienced enough to trouble shoot this issue. The program ext2ifs is supposed to read/write ext3 in windows XP, but it's just not working out for me with ext3. It does just great with ext2, but not ext3.

I do have windows.net installed. This may be creating an issue. I'm not sure.

Thought about making my /home folder NTFS, but I don't beleive it would be a good idea, because I can't create links in NTFS, can I?

Thinking of making a new partition (called DATA) NTFS, since it is no problem for my Linux OS to access NTFS. Read about this somewhere, but can't remember what filesystem was used. Would there be any problems as a result of doing this? I want windows to be able to access DATApics,movies,documents,music) patitions as well as Karmic. The goal here is to make a space for data that both OS's can read/write to easily.

There is plenty of room for this because I put in an extra HDD, which you will not see in my system info at the end of my post, because I have not yet made that entry.

Since ext2ifs is not responding correctly and it is beyond my ability to trouble shoot. And there is not much documentation or help online. The ext3 filesystems have been cleanly dismounted, so that's not the issue.

Would any of you more experienced & knowledgeable users advise against this? Or would it be fine for me to go ahead and create an NTFS partition and store all of my shared DATA between Linux & Windows? Would this cause any problems when telling programs to look there for data? Or should I use FAT16 or 32?

[bailout]

Re: Question: Filesystem type for DATA?

I have had a separate data partition shared with windows for years now. I used to use fat32 because when I started with linux it was recommended as the only file system that both could use reliably. I recently had some problems syncing the partition to an external drive (ntfs) and after some research decided to change my shared drive to ntfs as well.

Everything I read on the subject indicated that the ntfs driver in linux now is reliable enough to trust. I tell Digikam and Amarok to use my photos and music folders on the shared drive without any problems.

[bhamm77]

Re: Question: Filesystem type for DATA?

Thanks alot bailout. Someone who already uses this type of set-up successfully is what I was hoping to hear about. I beleive I will go with NTFS or FAT32. Still just a bit undecided on which one of the two to go with.

I will do a little more research on the pros and cons and post back what I decide to go with and why.

[JohanLingen]

Re: Question: Filesystem type for DATA?

Depends on how big you plan your partitions. If you are likely to share many gigabytes I'd try NTFS. The File Allocation Table, which FAT is renown for, will grow heavily beyond 32 or 64 GB, depending on your cluster size (but the bigger the cluster size, the more space you waste, especially with small files). A big fat FAT will eat up memory and increase access times.

This may help in creating links in windows: http://shell-shocked.org/article.php?id=284

[skunk]

Re: Question: Filesystem type for DATA?

There is also the issue that FAT and NTFS don't support linux file permissions

[bhamm77]

Re: Question: Filesystem type for DATA?

From what I have read by searching the internet & forums. Most people believe the better choice today would be NTFS because ntfs-3g allows reading and writing to NTFS, which is exactly what I'm looking to do. This is the filesytem that I will go with as well.

JohanLingen:

Thanks alot for the link! This is really cool...

I will be marking this one DONE... Thanks for the help.

Skunk:
I don't really plan on keeping anything that will need special permissions in this partition, just high volume data such as books, music, photos, videos, some non-privacy sensitive documents. I'm hoping that the (non-linux file permission) support won't be an issue with this type of use. Do you think it will affect me in this endeavor?