Which FS to use on both Linux and Windows?

CiniO

I have a need to common partition containing user data between windows 7 and linux.

Which setup would work better?
NTFS partition natively accessible from windows, and by ntfs-3g from linux?
Or maybe EXT3/EXT4 partition and some software for accessing it from windows (what software)?

System is really single user, so access rights doesn't matter.

PogMoThoin

Windows ntfs shares and Samba on linux is the way to do it

Stuxnet

ntfs probably the least hassle,

humbert

Stuxnet wrote: »

ntfs probably the least hassle,

Agreed, ext driver for windows isn't great and ntfs-3g works well.

I went looking for a filesystem that was OSX, Windows, Linux compatible before. Fat is the only one and after that you're back to NTFS which OSX can break if you switch to rw.

Mycroft H

FAT32 for files less then 4Gb. Works perfectly.

CiniO

humbert wrote: »

Agreed, ext driver for windows isn't great and ntfs-3g works well.

That's the same what I was actually thinking. But I was hoping there is some really good working driver windows driver for ext3/4
I had only good experience with ntfs-3g but I wasn't really using it that much.

CiniO

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Windows ntfs shares and Samba on linux is the way to do it

It must be on single dualboot machine, so samba can't help here.

CiniO

BX 19 wrote: »

FAT32 for files less then 4Gb. Works perfectly.

Is FAT32 not limited to 32GB partitions? I recall it was.
Even if it isn't I need to be able to store files larger than 4GB so it's not any good anyway.
Is there acutally any linux driver for exFAT?

CiniO

So it looks like I'm going for ntfs now.

It's like I've been using linux as my main OS for the last 14 years. Started with RedHat 5.0 then Slackware for a good while and eventually Gentoo.
During those 14 years I was trying to avoid windows as much as I could, and so unfortunately I don't know much about that system.
However now I'm forced to work a bit under windows as I'll need to use some win software that doesn't run well under wine neither virtualbox, so I just need to find a way of sharing my data between those 2 systems eaisly.

Thanks for replies.

druidhill

CiniO wrote: »

So it looks like I'm going for ntfs now.
However now I'm forced to work a bit under windows as I'll need to use some win software that doesn't run well under wine neither virtualbox, so I just need to find a way of sharing my data between those 2 systems

I was going to suggest virtualbox and can't see a problem - what issues are you having )? Perhaps your VM might need a bit of tweaking.

CiniO

CiniO wrote: »

Is FAT32 not limited to 32GB partitions? I recall it was.
Even if it isn't I need to be able to store files larger than 4GB so it's not any good anyway.
Is there acutally any linux driver for exFAT?

It's an artificial limitation imposed by Microsoft in Windows 2000 and later, because the default cluster size goes to 32KB beyond 32GB. You can still do up to ~2TB with a third party format utility.

exFAT works on Snow Leopard and Lion, not sure of Linux. If it did, I'd consider that to be the best for a common volume. Since exFAT is in the SDXC spec I'd guess it should at least be in the pipeline.

humbert

Karsini wrote: »

exFAT works on Snow Leopard and Lion, not sure of Linux. If it did, I'd consider that to be the best for a common volume. Since exFAT is in the SDXC spec I'd guess it should at least be in the pipeline.

From Wikipedia:
Companies can integrate exFAT into a specific group of consumer devices, including cameras, camcorders, and digital photo frames for a flat fee. Mobile phones, PCs, and networks have a different volume pricing model.

humbert

humbert wrote: »

From Wikipedia:
Companies can integrate exFAT into a specific group of consumer devices, including cameras, camcorders, and digital photo frames for a flat fee. Mobile phones, PCs, and networks have a different volume pricing model.

Yeah I just tried in Mint there, doesn't recognise the file system.

djmarkus

http://code.google.com/p/exfat/

But, I think I would rather NTFS

Capt'n Midnight

CiniO wrote: »

Or maybe EXT3/EXT4 partition and some software for accessing it from windows (what software)?.

This driver works fine in windows 7 , 64 bit - if you follow the tricks
http://www.fs-driver.org/

BUT only for inode sizes of 128bytes, so you have to format the partitions before installing stuff like ubuntu which defaults to a larger inode size

also have to mount the drives - to list drives and options use
mountvol -t


NB. if you don't do a clean dismount of a mounted volume the other OS will get upset and try to run chkdsk or fsck when it gets it's chance to boot