Filesystems: Pros/Cons

[pgebhard]

This may be basic, but I was wondering about three filesystems. I put XP on my computer and it is the first time that I have used NTFS. I was just wondering what the pros and cons are for NTFS, FAT32, and Ext2

 

[EmMayEx]

I think one of the major differences is that NTFS allows you to control file access in a more sophisticated manner. Fat32 doesn't keep track of who created a file, who owns it, or who has permission to read, append, copy, or delete files. Instead you are limited to four attributes (system, hidden, archinve, read only) that are globally applied to all users, and any user can change the attributes of any file, at least as far as the file system is concerned.

I'm sure there are other differences involving limits on file and directory size, cluster size etc. but those are more cosmetic differences, like the differences between Fat16 and Fat32.

Max L.

 

[pgebhard]

Yes, that is true. Thank you. Also, what about speed...is there any difference. I guess if you look at cluster size, that could affect speed...any thoughts?

 

[Nothinman]

FAT32 is terrible. It's an extension to a so-so filesystem invented decades ago. The FAT is just a huge linked list of files, so for the OS to find a file it has to iterate the entire list, if you have a lot of files this can take a while (in computer time). It doesn't support long filenames, everytime you create a long filename you waste disk space because it uses 1 cluster to ever 13 characters, making that cluster unusable for data.

NTFS isn't too bad, it's only major problem is fragmentation is bad.

ext2 is dated but still works amazingly well. It's only major problem is large directories (by large I mean 10s of thousands of files) can take a while to get a listing because of the way they're stored. It also doesn't support ACLs directly, which can be a problem for some people.

Is there something in particular you were wondering?

 

[pgebhard]

Yeah, the filename thing in FAT is stupid, NTFS sounds good, and what are ACLs? I was just wondering because I am gonna dual boot XP and Mandrake 8.1 on my newly built sys...check my rigs.

 

[Nothinman]

ACLs are Access Control Lists, an extensive way to assign user and group rights to files.

 

[AndyHui]

FAQ: FAT32 vs NTFS

 

[pgebhard]

Thank you...you and your FAQs...heh there is one for everything. Gotta check em out.

 

[CTho9305]

<< Yeah, the filename thing in FAT is stupid, NTFS sounds good, and what are ACLs? I was just wondering because I am gonna dual boot XP and Mandrake 8.1 on my newly built sys...check my rigs. >>



last time I checked, NTFS support under *nix was pretty poor. If you want to be able to share files between XP and linux, you should create a FAT32 partition.

here is how I would partition the drive:
1. NTFS for XP, programs, etc. make it big enough for all you programs
2. FAT32 for data. big enough for all your data both xp and linux read/write fat32 without trouble.
3. EXT3 for linux. ext3 is an extension of ext2 which will save you MAJOR headaches if you ever power down wrong or uncleanly umount a drive.
4. (linux swap partition, of course)

 

[Nothinman]

last time I checked, NTFS support under *nix was pretty poor. If you want to be able to share files between XP and linux, you should create a FAT32 partition.

Just a nitpick but I believe Linux is the only unix with NTFS support. And reading NTFS works pretty well, if you just want to do something like play your MP3s you should be fine, but you need to write to the files you'll need to use FAT32.

 

[CTho9305]

<< last time I checked, NTFS support under *nix was pretty poor. If you want to be able to share files between XP and linux, you should create a FAT32 partition.

Just a nitpick but I believe Linux is the only unix with NTFS support. And reading NTFS works pretty well, if you just want to do something like play your MP3s you should be fine, but you need to write to the files you'll need to use FAT32. >>


i didn't know that so what does "pretty well" mean? i'd really prefer to not have any fat32 partitions on my drive

 

[pgebhard]

Yeah I would rather not have lots of partitions and not have a fat32 partition. If only Linux could read NTFS well...

 

[zsouthboy]

Linux can read NTFS just fine, but writing to NTFS is still considered "experimental". It may or may not cause problems.

zs

 

[Carceri]

I have tested writing NTFS partitions from Linux a few times. My experience is that instead of "It may or may not cause problems" it should be "will eventually cause problems"

If you stress the file system, it becomes currupted very fast. If you just write a single file sometimes it can survive a little longer. Especially NTFS5 (for Windows 2000 and XP) does not work well. NTFS from NT4 works better, but not good.

Just my observations...

Another question about filesystems. We are planning to use XFS for our Linux fileserver (to have a journaling file system) and to allow ACL's when running a Samba server. Does anyone have experience with this filesystem under Linux? Is it stable enough to deploy in a production environment?

 

[Nothinman]

My experience is that instead of "It may or may not cause problems" it should be "will eventually cause problems"

It already is, especially with NTFS 5. There's a utility that was written by someone that specifically fixes the problems Linux's NTFS driver creates when writing to the partition.

We are planning to use XFS for our Linux fileserver (to have a journaling file system) and to allow ACL's when running a Samba server. Does anyone have experience with this filesystem under Linux? Is it stable enough to deploy in a production environment?

XFS rocks, I have it running on all of my Linux installations (minus the sparc because it's not well tested on big endian arches). You may want to join the XFS mailing list, or atleast book mark the archives for searching. And you'll probably want the newest kernel from CVS to get all the newest fixes, although it's not totally necessary.