Which file system is best for Linux on an external drive?

[Joel64]

I have an external ssd for backup and storage.
I also have some desktop shortcuts that I wanted to backup.
When I dragged them to the backup drive, I got an error that said the destination filesystem (ExFAT) doesn't support symlinks.

So if I reformat the drive, which filesystem should I use?

[Schwarzer Kater]

If you just want to use it for Linux e.g. ext4 is a good choice (and a bit faster than Btrfs).
Don't forget to at least sudo chown your_user_name /mount_point/your_external_drive your mounted external drive after re-formatting it in ext4 with e.g. KDE Partition Manager or GParted. Otherwise root will be the owner!

[jglen490]

Or not

There are times when chown is not just nice, but absolutely necessary. However, don't be afraid of sudo when it's appropriate; I use rsync a lot when when preserving attributes on file copies.

And, yes, ext4 is good on externals.

[Beerislife]

I formatted an external 4Tb (Internal really but sitting in a swappable cradle) disk as EXT4 since there are no Windows machines here!

[Joel64]

I formatted an external 4Tb (Internal really but sitting in a swappable cradle) disk as EXT4 since there are no Windows machines here!

haha, my younger brother cautioned me about ext4, because I wouldn't be able to use it on Windows. I told him that was fine, because I have no intention to use Windows!

[oshunluvr]

Note that EXT4 reserves a large chuck of blocks for "root processes" by default - 5%. You do not need reserved blocks on a USB non-system drive. If you've already formatted it, this should set it to zero reserved:

tune2fs -m 0 /dev/yourpartition

If you haven't yet formatted it;
sudo mkfs.ext4 -m 0 /dev/yourpartition

You can increase access performance with some mount options if you're mounting this using /etc/fstab;

noatime will not record access times when files are touched
data=writeback will turn off journaling
Not using sync will increase performance of writes but will require that all write transactions be completed before you remove the drive

I suggest you do a bit of research on the effect of each of these before committing to them.

If you do not use etc/fstab to mount this drive, you can add mount options to a specific USB device file system using /etc/udisks/mount_options.conf

There should be a set of example options in /etc/udisks/mount_options.conf.example

[Joel64]

...You do not need reserved blocks on a USB drive...

It's not a USB.

[oshunluvr]

It's not a USB.

OK, but its a backup drive not a system drive. No need to reserve blocks for root.