Cross-OS File System That Sucks Less? 449
An anonymous reader writes "I recently got an external hard disk with USB 2.0/Firewire/Firewire 800/eSATA to be used for backup and file exchange — my desktop runs Linux (with a Windows partition for games but no data worth saving), and the laptop is a MacBook Pro. So the question popped up: what kind of filesystem is best for this kind of situation? Is there a filesystem that works well under Linux, MacOS X, and Windows? Linux has HFS+ support but apparently doesn't support journaling and there's also an issue with the case-insensitivity of HFS+. Are we stuck with crummy VFAT forever or are there efforts underway to bring a modern filesystem (I'm thinking something like ZFS, BeFS, or XFS) to all platforms? Or are there other clever solutions like storing ISO images and loop-mounting those?"
Moving Target (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oblig. Obvious Solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Have any of you read the post you are replying to? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Have any of you read the post you are replying (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:wait for ZFS (Score:1, Insightful)
Your Problem doesnt have a solution buddy (Score:2, Insightful)
Shared storage, not shared drive (Score:5, Insightful)
I set up an old PC with Linux to solve many needs. NFS and Samba provide a common pool of storage for every OS that I use. Since setting that up, I haven't ever though about shared partitions. They aren't needed.
Linux and Samba worked for me, but that's not the only solution. A NAS box might work better for you. The point is that you need shared storage, not a shared drive. Every OS supports network storage. Every OS supports backups across the network.
Forget it (Score:5, Insightful)
Modern filesystems are complicated beasts. One tiny error can have catastrophic results. Native filesystem drivers are the results of many years of real-life testing by millions of users. Can you really believe a third-party filesystem driver to be solid enough to write on a foreign filesystem?
Read-only support is OK because it's a magnitude easier to implement, though.
The only viable solution to cross-OS filesystem usage (without crippling yourself to FAT32) is networking.
You're not very smart, are you? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The irony (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You're not very smart, are you? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, please drop the trolling and stop calling it MurdererFS. It is an insult to the many employees of NameSys who developed the code, and continue to do so today. Not to mention, it would certainly be an unfair accusation if Reiser is acquitted.
Get the job done. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Network it, or NTFS (Score:1, Insightful)
Broken or not, NTFS is the solution. Windows supports FAT and NTFS. Microsoft doesn't exactly go out of their way to be compatible with other systems, so if you want to share a file system between Windows and something else, it has to be one of those two.
The smart thing to do would be to stop using Windows, but you're not going to do that, you're just going to whine and take it.
Re:Shared storage, not shared drive (Score:3, Insightful)
In summary: there is a real need for sharing a drive between different systems.
Re:You're not very smart, are you? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Shared storage, not shared drive (Score:3, Insightful)
You're thinking firmly inside the box.
Here's my scenario: I have OpenBSD, Linux, OpenSolaris, and OS X machines. (I don't do Windows, but I hear others do.) For backups I got a 350GB hard disk and a USB drive case. I'd like to format the disk so it can be mounted on all the systems so everything is backed up on that one disk. If there's an earthquake or fire, there's only one little box to grab. And obviously I'd like to be able to look at all my files from any platform. (All my machines are not on the same network, so forget NFS.)
Sorry sir, you can't do that.
(Jesus Christ, they're all open source systems, enough with the "mine is bigger than yours" posturing! Screw journalling, just basic POSIX semantics would be good enough. Maybe standardize on basic UFS.)
Re:You're not very smart, are you? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow this is news to anyone that knows anything about the NTFS structure.
I love how people can make garbage claims like this, yet there are companies that are running NTFS volumes that are 15years old without any incident. You know companies like EDS, GM, and other agencies like Lockheed and NASA.
But I'm sure youf 'assessment' of NTFS is much smarter than the 'rocket scientists' at these organizations.
Let's take your starting line "NTFS is also unusably slow after 6 months of heavy usage."
Would you care to explain how this could possibliy, logistically or physically even be possble? Fragmentation is the only thing that could slow a FS over time unless the FS used a really stupid indexing system for the File Table. And yet not only is NTFS is still one of the best FS for handing fragmentation, ever, it has a well managed and fast file table indexing system.
So please do englighten us all with your knowledge so I can call my contacts at NASA and tell them how stupid they are for trusting NTFS and explain to them that their systems are getting slower.
The lack of this competitive technological drive is probably why Windows has been the same POS for the last 20 years.
Or maybe it is because the NT team designed the OS so that it was highly extensible and would meet OS requirements for 15-20 at the minimum, considering it still has core kernel features that are not even used or exposed in Vista yet even.
The problem is, people like you, see Windows as Win3.1/Win9x and Windows of today running on the NT Core is a different OS, a different design, shares no code, and yet still has the same UI concepts so people aren't bright enough to realize that the underlying NT architecture is actually one of the few things MS has ever done right.
Go read up on NTFS, and Windows NT before you come back, you are only embarrasing yourself, and that is hard to do on Slashdot when talking about Windows and NT.
Re:Doesn't work with a Macbook. (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess that you also don't use Samba either
Re:You're not very smart, are you? (Score:3, Insightful)
One important limitation of FAT32 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You're not very smart, are you? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:You're not very smart, are you? (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, actually, he's either innocent or guilty, but he should be presumed innocent until proven otherwise.
Now, if we were talking about a quantum trial, he'd be both innocent and guilty until the evidence was observed, at which point he'd be one or the other.
All jokes aside, you do make a good point: whether or not Hans Reiser ever killed anybody (and we shouldn't jump to conclusions), the folks at NameSys have built a sweet filesystem or two. My question is: if Hans Reiser does go to prison, is there anybody else who could step up to a "maintainer" role and see Reiser4 (which may be renamed) integrated into the kernel?