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How do you format your external drive in 2021 to use with both: Linux and macOS?

6 points by lovelyviking ↗ HN
If you really want big external drive capable of being used safely(!) at least by both Linux and macOS :

What is the best and safest format to use for big files/backups/disk images etc?

Is it possible at all? I heard many bad things about ExFat, that is not safe and invitation for failures? But what is the alternative then? Do we have one in 2021?

Is it practical to use zfs for instance?

In general, what is the safest format to use for storage that will be readable in some observable future by different OSes?

12 comments

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doganengin
As long as you partition it with - say Linux (during installation) you can format the other partition with the other OS installation. You do not need to prepare it in advance before your first installation, I think.
lovelyviking
Sure, but if I wish to use the same partition for both OSes. The question is more about what format can serve as a general storage format that is safe/acceptable enough and can be accesses/used from different OSes ?
doganengin
This is a little out of my knowledge so I will leave my two cents but hopefully someone with a better idea can opine.

I think ExFat format is supported by Linux, OSX and Windows.

Alternatively, if you are doing this to copy files back and forth, there is also the option of using scp.

FYI: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HFS_Plus#Linux

uneekname
No idea about zfs support on macOS, that would be cool.

I have this stack exchange thread bookmarked and ive always been able to mount HFS+ drives on Linux using it.[1] Not the most stable thing in the world but generally fine as long as you're careful about mounting/unmounting properly.

Besides that exfat is probably the way to go. I know it isn't ideal but it works.

[1] https://askubuntu.com/questions/332315/how-to-read-and-write...

lovelyviking
That could work , but actually I was trying to move away from hfs+ looking for something better and reliable.

I had a big crush with hfs+ and when I was digging into the specs I was shocked to discover how unreliable and easy to kill it can be .

uneekname
That's valid, I have managed to bork an HFS+ drive so can attest to its drawbacks.

I'd be interested to know if you find a more stable solution

lovelyviking
Since I have now a drive with corrupted file-name indexes, I’ll have to write a tool at some point that can fix that and would prevent that happening in the future.

Last time I’ve checked I didn’t find a proper open sourced reliable tool to fix the issue.

viraptor
> I heard many bad things about ExFat, that is not safe and invitation for failures?

This is very generic. The main issue is that it doesn't support journaling so crashes / power loss could affect it. I'd use it for a shared internal drive, but if your point is to have it as an external/portable one, it could lead to consistency issues.

If you're happy to spend some money, there's always extfs support https://www.paragon-software.com/home/extfs-mac/# or NTFS which is well supported on Linux and has a commercial driver from Paragon: https://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/

lovelyviking
>The main issue is that it doesn't support journaling so crashes / power loss could affect it.

This is my main concern with exFat so I would not consider it reliable enough for the task.

NTFS well ... I was trying to move away from it too. It’s not exactly open/free and I wouldn’t really wish to be depended on some company for accessing my storage for years to come.

Basically I am curious is there some new format in 2021 that can serve well for external storage AND works with diff OSes ?

karmakaze
Now about accessing it via NAS?

Then you only need to support the NAS OS and whatever filesystem features are available over the wire/air.