HOW-TO: FAT32/NTFS/ext3 for Windows/Linux cross-compatible


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I own a NAS D-Link DNS-320 running fun_plug 0.7 & transmissionBT.

I just bought a Transcend 2.5 inch 2TB USB HDD which is preformatted to NTFS.

Just wondering whether my NAS(linux) can write to my USB HDD for a reliable storage for transmissionBT.

Otherwise, if writing to NTFS is unstable in linux, how should I format my USB HDD. I know I could format as FAT32... but FAT32 has a 4GB file size limit.
Is it possible to format USB HDD as ext3 (linux file system)... and still compatible/read/write by Windows XP/7/8?

 

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You might want to check out this link which will show you the compatibility of filesystems with operating systems.

As far as I know, Linux can read and write to NTFS, but you may need a third party driver to get it working.

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This is connected to your nas.. Why would you format it in anything other than your NASes OS favorite filesystem.  Are you going to take this disk off your nas and plug it into other OSes directly??  Kind of defeats the purpose of a NAS ;)

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The file system only pertains to the os directly attaching to it.  If it is a network share, it is irrelevant how it drive is formatted as long as the host os can read it and can write to it.

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^ exactly, which is why I suggest you format the disk with whatever filesystem your NAS likes best. More than likely your NAS should have facilities to format

and partition the drive you attach.

If it came predone, you may want to clear off any hidden or oem type partitions that might be on it.

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The file system only pertains to the os directly attaching to it.  If it is a network share, it is irrelevant how it drive is formatted as long as the host os can read it and can write to it.

Generally (NAS or not), the only reason that anyone would need WRITE access to a Foreign File System (FFS) is poor partition planning.  If you properly plan, READ access is typically enough.

 

I'm someone that runs multiple OSes with multiple file-systems on a daily basis - NTFS (two flavors), ext4 (Linux distributions) and HFS-J (OS X Yosemite)(HFS-J is HFS with Journaling - Yosemite's default).

 

That said, OS X has the greatest "default" FFS support (read-only for NTFS, and, of course, read/write for all previous flavors of OS X) - however, if you are willing to recompile the kernel (not as difficult as you would think), Linux can beat it (there's a HOWTO hosted on kernel.org on kernel recompiling for file-system support that is actually newbie-friendly).  If read-only access is enough, NTFS is the least-derangeable by other OSes accessing it (that is why I tend to use NTFS as my overall *host* FS - stability).

 

Mount an image file from an FFS - Why Not?

 

One thing that STILL surprises folks is being able to mount an image file from a foreign file system - specifically, things like DMG files stored on NTFS.  What I DON'T get is why this is still surprising.  Mounting a disk image doesn't change the underlying filesystem hosting the file; it makes it easier for the gaining filesystem to handle the contents, but that's all.  The lack of ability to become deranged by either HFS-J or Linux merely reading NTFS (writing to NTFS is, naturally, a different story - that is why I generally leave NTFS-write disabled) is why I prefer NTFS as a source partition, even for files that Windows has zero use for (such as OS X or Linux-targeting datafiles, etc.)  Even better, NTFS is like type O (the Universal Donor) - both OS X and Linux distributions can read it by default.

 

NTFS and Slack Space

 

With that said, I have one quibble with NTFS - the default bytes per sector.  Up to the BIOS default for partition sizes - two terabytes - NTFS defaults to 2 kilobytes per sector.  Okay -  why the gnashing of teeth?  Easily explained; up to that same partition size, NTFS has a 512-byte sector option that is perfectly fine for BIOS-based PCs to use.  Unless you host a lot of piggy files on a partition, the typical user will have mostly SMALL files; assuming one file per sector, why should a 250-byte file wallow in a 2 kilobyte sector?  As part of the pre-plan, format your NTFS partitions using 512-byte sectors - and stop wasting space.

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Just as an example, for the most part the internet is majority unix based.  Natively windows can not read or write to the unix file system, however windows computers can read and write files on that system through the web.

 

But you can believe poor partition planning is the reason that we would need to write to a foreign file system, that is exactly why we can change web pages and the information there as well as files (when we have access to)...it is all poor partition planning :/  The entire web is based off of poor partition planning according to PGHammer anyway.  Google drive is not a windows based OS structure, that must be poor partition planning as well.

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