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#1 |
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Long story, short version. Just had a catastrophic early (less than 6 mos.) failure of an external 4TB hard drive used for Calibre library back-up. Have a replacement en route. It will arrive formatted ext32. It will be used exclusively on Win 10 via (USB) & is a 3.5 spinner (my experience with 2.5" drives not stellar e.g the current early failure & it on ext32) . Maybe just a gut hunch, or paranoia, but I'm very much inclined to format it to NTFS on receipt before putting it into service.
Am hopeful that the inherent journaling of NTFS may save my bacon down the road but am unsure if perfomance may suffer, or if my current bias is taking me down a road with only imagined benefit. All my internal Windows drives are NTFS. Am soliciting & would very much welcome any expert advice from Calibre users having large libraries on which way to go. Am using FreeFileSync as my BU tool of choice. |
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#2 |
the rook, bossing Never.
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ext32? Do you mean exFAT? The older MS non-NT is FAT32 (win9x).
Anyway: NT (Windows) needs NTFS. Linux ext4, Apple which ever FS the installed MacOS is using. exFAT and FAT32 are only useful to copy between different OSes. Also I'd reformat any new drive to avoid supply chain malware, shovel-ware and ensure the file system matchs the OS in use if it's not for "sneaker net" use. Yes, it should be NTFS for your OS and application. |
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#3 |
Bibliophagist
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I would leave the format as exFAT (I'm assuming that is what you mean by ext32 though that might also refer to FAT32) but I would reformat it before use. Too many drives these days ship will all kinds of crapware on them. No real advantage that I've seen in formatting external hard drives as NTFS.
Your paranoia should extend to not trusting any storage medium. As one old saw puts it, the best way not to need a backup is to have one. |
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#4 |
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My bad ... for clarity my ext32 reference should have been exFat. Apparently it has become common for manufacturers to so format external drives for cross platform compatibility out of the box.
If pretty much a toss up (other than potential cross platform compatibility), I'll probably go NTFS (as indicated, its journalizing may save my butt down the road) unless someone raises a performance concern of which I'm unaware Appreciate the feedback from Quoth & DNSB |
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#5 | |
null operator (he/him)
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Calibre will use hardlinks (inode copies) & delete for mainstream operations involving folder/file moves on native filesystems… which is fast. Because FAT devices don't support hardlinks calibre has to use file/folder copy & delete… which is slow. I don't know what calibre does on exFAT… not even sure exFAT even supports hardlinks. I know exFAT doesn't support symbolic links… which I do make use of, including in the the context of calibre. I would use NTFS. BR |
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#6 |
Bibliophagist
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Last time I looked hardlinks on a NTFS volume can only access files not folders and they can't reference files on a different volume. Reparse points/junctions can operate between volumes but they are a pain since they can not reference files nor can they reference a network volume. Symbolic links under NTFS were designed to be compatible with Unix style symlinks but require NTFS 3.1+. Personally, I found symbolic links to be a total PITA since the backup programs we were using either copied only the file path and not the data or copied the data every time a symbolic link was accessed during the backup.
On a FAT32/exFAt/etc. volume, moving a file between directories only moves the directory reference not the file data so not that much speed difference. |
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#7 |
null operator (he/him)
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The backup program I use (GoodSync) lets me configure what to do with symlinks… it's one of the reasons I chose to use it well over a decade ago, probably closer to two.
If you think calibre should not be making use of hardlinks when moving book folders and format files you should take it up with Kovid. BR |
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#8 | |
Bibliophagist
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Quote:
I.e. you can not use hardlinks when moving folders since hardlinks are not able to access folders. |
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#9 |
creator of calibre
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NTFS is way, way better than exfat. Always go for ntfs unless there is some overriding need to use exfat such as compatibility with some limited device or other OS or similar.
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#10 | |
null operator (he/him)
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Maybe someone who is familiar with the inner workings of Windows Explorer. BR Last edited by BetterRed; 06-22-2024 at 11:39 PM. |
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#11 | |
Bibliophagist
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Going back to Microsoft's documentation:
Quote:
Last edited by DNSB; 06-22-2024 at 11:35 PM. |
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#12 | ||||
null operator (he/him)
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Read what I wrote:
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BR |
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#13 |
the rook, bossing Never.
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However NTFS is far better than FAT12, FAT32, exFAT. One reason is journalling. Only the DOS loaded windows didn't use it. By default NT 3.1, NT3.x, NT 4.0, NT 5.x (Win2K, XP, 2003, Vista, Win7), Win8, win1x) use NTFS.
If using a USB drive as a portable drive for different OS, then use FAT32 or exFAT. If using a USB drive for extra storage and use directly with any application, then you use the native filesystem, which was always NTFS for all real Windows OS. WinME was the last Windows branded desktop OS that didn't use NTFS. On XP I only used drive letters for the CD/DVD drive, boot drive and removable drives. I mounted extra internal drives into an empty directory (folder) like you'd do on Unix/Linux. I'd have done that if using a dedicated USB drive, if that works. Last edited by Quoth; 06-23-2024 at 04:01 AM. |
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#14 | |
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But for portability with my iPad and Windows and Tumblweed? It has to be exFAT. No choice here. |
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#15 |
the rook, bossing Never.
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Oh, I've been able to use NTFS on Linux since maybe 1999 without doing anything special.
Bitlocker is more likely to stop a user repairing than be a really needed security feature. The Browser malicious script blocking and avoiding malicious email content is far more important. Also a separate firewall, not part of Windows, so I don't believe in built-in mobile/cellular on windows, but a 3rd party external battery powered hot spot with WiFi and ethernet. I've had one since 2007. Edit: I also had Ext2 support on WinXP nearly 20 years ago, but 3rd party driver. Apple is tricky. Ten years ago a 3rd level college using Mac on a Media course expected students to use an Apple format on their USB drives/sticks. Last edited by Quoth; 06-23-2024 at 10:18 AM. |
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ntfs vs ext32 |
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