Windows Alternatives to NTFS? 140
Maidjeurtam asks: "I'm a multi-OS user. Although Linux is what I use the most these days (I run it on my primary P4 box and on my iBook), I also run Mac OS X and a Windows XP on other machines. Of course, those boxes are networked, but sometimes, I just prefer to plug one machine's hard disk into another. I often work with big DV files (> 4GiB) and it looks like I have no other choice than having a different filesystem on each of my boxes. Granted, Linux can read NTFS (Macs can too) and even write to NTFS partitions thanks to tools like Captive, but I don't like the idea of running Windows code on my Linux box. In fact, I don't want my data stored on a proprietary, closed filesystem. I've googled a bit and it seems there's no modern (free-as-in-speech) filesystem I can install on Windows. I'd love to have ReiserFS running on my XP box, for example. Am I condemned to stay with NTFS, or do you guys know of a Windows-compatible, open filesystem that I can use?"
File size (Score:4, Insightful)
Last I checked, you couldn't have files over 4 gb in size on a FAT partition.
Re:Why doesn't somebody write one? (Score:3, Insightful)
Waaaaaah (Score:1, Insightful)
And this is why you will die very lonely.
Seriously though, what does it matter? You want files over 4 gig in Windows? You pretty much have to use NTFS. Deal with it.
Don't use Windows (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmm, then maybe don't use Windows?! Seriously, why complain about the file system in particular when the entire OS is closed source. It's one thing to say "I only use OSS," but it's another to say "I don't mind closed source software, except for on this one part - there it's bad."
Windows is optimized for NTFS now, and NTFS is good. If you don't want propritary stuff, don't use Windows, period.
Reiser? (Score:5, Insightful)
Reiser is not really appropriate here, because you want a filesystem for "large" files. Reiser's strength and efficiency is in large numbers of small files.