NTFS-3G: the universal filesystem

NTFS-3G

After I started running Linux and then Mac OS X, in addition to Windows, I started on a quest to find the universal filesystem. I had multiboot systems and external drives where I wanted to to be able to read and write disks under multiple operating systems.

The obvious choice is FAT32, the ubiquitous, lowest-common denominator filesystem. FAT32 is supported out-of-the-box by all major operating systems, digital cameras, and PDAs, so that's a huge advantage. FAT32 also has major shortcomings:

  • Maximum file size is 4GB. I have ISOs, MPEGs, and other large files exceeding this limit.
  • Fragmentation happens too easily.
  • Timestamps: accurate only to 2-second resolution. No notion of timezones or UTC.
  • Journaling: none. Preferred for robustness.
  • ACLs or Permissions. Nothing beyond R/W.

I experimented with ext3 (and its non-journaling sibling, ext2) on Windows and later on the Mac. On Windows, ext2fs works well and I used it happily for several months on a machine dualbooting XP and Ubuntu. It did not work well with Vista initially, though that seems to have been fixed since.

My experiences on the Mac were bad: ext2fsx caused some kernel panics, which was enough for me to abandon it.

There was no free solution for reading and writing Mac HFS+ disks under Linux and Windows the last time that I checked.

Both Linux and Macs natively support mounting NTFS disks read-only. The NTFS-3G project allows Linux to write to NTFS disks, and Mac NTFS-3G does likewise for Macs. I've never had a problem with NTFS-3G and it's worked flawlessly under Linux and Mac for me.

19 Comments

  • I managed to enable NTFS mounting on Linux by recompiling the kernel 2 years ago, I'm not sure if the new kernel versions still have this feature. But everything I tried on the Mac caused kernel panics, I think I will try Mac NTFS-3G maybe it will solve this once and for all. Thanks.

  • Linux Kernel NTFS implementation lacked (some time ago. I'm not sure for today) real wirting support. It would neither create new files nor could grow existing files. ntfs-3g is a life saver for ntfs users with Linux. It has never let me down once yet. But I do not use ntfs daily only for my external storage that I rarely use.

  • I use NTFS-3G daily since I switched from Windows to Linux 2 years ago. Compared to its former alternatives, read-only NTFS support from the Linux kernel itself and Captive-NTFS, which was using an emulated environment for original Microsoft drivers, ntfs-3g always worked surprisingly well and completely noncompetitive; it's a really excellent project.

    Performance is great (~40MB/s compared to ~70MB/s maximum speed and ~8MB/s with Captive), reliability too (never had any corruption, even on crashes; Captive had some random crashes and hangs from time to time).

    I also used the OS X port some times and it although it was flagged unstable at that time it seemed very stable, just like the Linux version. Unfortunately, performance is limited by the way FUSE works (it stands for "filesystem in userspace"); a kernel module could be even faster but I almost never missed a faster transfer rate in the 2 years I am using it continuously for media storage.

    I, too, can only recommend NTFS for use in a multi-boot environment with Windows (and OS X); nothing else works that smooth on all three systems.

  • Just a minor correction, HFS+ has been supported in the linux kernel as a file systems driver since 2.6.18

    That still doesn't resolve the issue with windows not being able to read hfs+ though, so NTFS-3G is still quite attractive.

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  • NTFS is a good sollution if you have many operating systems on a pc, but what happens when you neet to plug an external usb drive to a multimedia player or console? western digital's wdtv supports both ntfs and hfs+. I haven't tried Linux formated drives. PS3 only supports fat32 and XBOX360 supports only HFS+ and not NTFS (Yes MS does NOT support their own filesystem)

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  • Timestamps are not needed for anything other than maybe to document your personal pictures as to when the picture was taken.

    Far too much emphasis is placed on timestamps and other unnecessary items. Most people don't give 2 hoots about whether time stamps are 2 seconds or 1 nanosecond. Most don't want ACL's either.

    Almost none of the security features you mention are ever needed by a typical user. Only extremists and servers need such measures, and generally not even then. Most are a waste of cpu cycles and space. Really, what difference does it make to even have timestamps?


    Everyone I know just wants to save their pics and such without any BS. And be able to share them with everyone.

    Now, ISO 9660 is a universal FS, but is not a good choice. Hard to load and edit things.


    Too bad MFR's won't just make a hardware file system that works on everything.

    A system whereby the data is efficiently saved without interfeence of any operating system.


    I hear that once Linux breaks the ExFat FS that will be the new one to use.

    More on NTFS-3G

    Linux is OK using it but has a lot of problems. Like it seems to have crosslinked files, free space errors, not wanting to use and update the tiny 8MB partition used tor file controls.

    When I get the 'Use Windows to fis FS errors' popup, there is something definitely wrong with linux.

    I want to get away from windows, but apparently I can't.

    And I surely do need a truly universal file system without all that junk you mentioned.

    PS how many of you need a 1 exabyte file?
    Do you have any idea how long it would be to read that file? How much memory you need?

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