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As the person who tested the latest ntfs3 patchset, and had tested many of those iterations in the past, I would really like to see this *finally* land in
by Santosh83 5y ago
As the person who tested the latest ntfs3 patchset, and had tested
many of those iterations in the past, I would really like to see
this *finally* land in Linux 5.14.
However, I get the feeling it's not going to make it for 5.14 *or*
5.15, and it seems like Paragon became discouraged by the lack of
feedback on the latest revision.
I know that compared to all you awesome folks, I'm just a lowly
user, but it's been frustrating to see nothing happen for months
with something that has a seriously high impact for a lot of people.
It's a shame, because the ntfs3 driver is miles better than the
current ntfs one, and is a solid replacement for the unmaintained
ntfs-3g FUSE implementation.
Seriously, such a well funded, high profile project like Linux should be more receptive to key QoL improvements and drivers. NTFS is the de facto filesystem for portable data storage, much as I wish an open alternative was there. I hope they speed up the merge of ntfs3 into the mainline.
- yakubin 5y ago> NTFS is the de facto filesystem for portable data storage I thought it was FAT32. Do Macs support NTFS? EDIT: It seems they don't out of the box: <https://www.howtogeek.com/236055/HOW-TO-WRITE-TO-NTFS-DRIVES-ON-A-MAC/ https://www.howtogeek.com/236055/HOW-TO-WRITE-TO-NTFS-DRIVES...> EDIT 2: Since many comments replied with the same thing, I'll reply here: I wouldn't consider read-only support as support for portable data storage, since that allows you only to send data in one direction. When you want to copy a file from a Mac to a Windows computer, NTFS is not a solution now (out of the box at least), therefore falls pretty short wrt "portable".
- CapsAdmin 5y agoYeah, you need to use FAT32 if you want to make a cross os portable drive.
- simias 5y agoFAT32 doesn't support files bigger than 4GiB, that's a huge limitation these days. But I don't disagree that calling NTFS "portable" is a bit of a stretch, although hopefully that'll change if good quality open source drivers become available.
- beermonster 5y agoNTFS has journaling,compression, encryption, max 255 character filenames, max partition size is hundred of TB rather than 2GB, generally faster performance wise. Trouble is , FAT32 has more OS compatibility. Would be nice if Linux did have first class support for NTFS as it’s superior. But right now for maximum compatibility you need FAT32
- sascha_sl 5y ago> max 255 character filenames it doesn't in spec, that's just the win32 API
- jasode 5y ago>it doesn't in spec, that's just the win32 API NTFS filename length is limited to 255 Unicode chars. You may be thinking of full path lengths of 32,767 Unicode chars but the filename component is still limited to 255. If you look at the NTFS data structure "$FILE_NAME (0x30)" at byte offset 0x40: https://www.google.com/search?q=ntfs+%22%24FILE_NAME%22+byte https://www.google.com/search?q=ntfs+%22%24FILE_NAME%22+byte ... there's only 1 byte used to describe the filename length. Hence max of 255 chars. Wikipedia page about NTFS also mentions 255 max length for filename: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS
- ziml77 5y agoYou're confusing the filename length limit with the limitation on the entire path length in the Windows API. NTFS allows paths to be up to 32k characters long, but each path component tops out at 255 characters.
- wyuenho 5y agoThe Paragon driver cannot recognize encrypted NTFS volumes AFAIK
- gattilorenz 5y ago> max partition size is hundred of TB rather than 2GB FAT16 is limited to 2GB, FAT32 can extend to 2TB (but the max file size for a single file is 4GB, as the parent stated)
- nullify88 5y agoexFAT is probably better in terms of cross platform compatibility and addresses a lot of the limitations of FAT while remaining portable. Since Snow Leopard OS X is able to read and write out the box. Linux natively supported from kernel 5.4. Windows supports it from updated XP and onwards. I not sure of Android compatibility though.
- cassianoleal 5y ago> addresses a lot of the limitations of FAT while remaining portable Whilst at the same time missing a very important feature for portable storage - a journal.
- tssva 5y agoJournaling can have significant downsides when used with external flash storage including reduced performance and increased wear of the flash memory.
- cassianoleal 5y agoNot disputing your facts, but I've used journalled file systems in flash drives since forever and never had a performance issue that was not directly tied to the hardware, and most have lasted many years. I prefer having to replace a cheap flash drive more frequently than to lose data altogether. Of course, everybody's use case is different and tradeoffs need to be considered.
- polar 5y agoIs exFAT's reputation for data loss/corruption unwarranted?
- 3np 5y agoIN my mind it has been exFAT for the past several years.
- knuthsat 5y agoI have no idea if I did something, but after MacOS 11 upgrade it seems to automatically mount my NTFS drive. I do know that FUSE MacOS stuff seems to be disabled in brew.
- cto_of_antifa 5y agoI think that brew is unable to install the kexts of k Catalina+. I had to use the pkg
- gattilorenz 5y agoThis has been true for a long time. Does it mount it r/w or read only?
- knuthsat 5y agoInteresting. Previously I had to run the mounting command manually ever since I remember trying to mount an NTFS drive. It's read only.
- rolleiflex 5y agoThey do, but only to read, not write. I think the current up to date recommendation for cross-OS compatibility on external drives is to use ExFAT, though I believe the concept of the ‘external drive’ itself should be deprecated.
- fabiomaia 5y ago> though I believe the concept of the ‘external drive’ itself should be deprecated why?
- rolleiflex 5y agoI think they’re problematic because they’ve reached ungodly amounts of storage and I don’t think most non-technical people fully understand how much of a loaded gun a non-regularly-backed-up 2TB external HDD is. As a real world example, I’ve had to help recover my aunt’s 5-year-old 2TB HDD that she dropped several times and had no backup of, and by helping I mean confirming she probably lost a terabyte plus of data unless she wants to pay five digits USD to pay to a recovery company for a way less than 100% recovery. She is a highly educated professional (a MD) and yet, it did not even occur to her that the drive will not only might fail, but rather, will fail. To quite a lot of non-technical people an external drive appears to be the safest form of storage, considering its being physically visible and movable. The closest analogy is storing money under the pillow versus a in bank, in all the good and bad ways.
- piskov 5y agoMacs support NTFS in read-only mode out of the box. For writing you need tools like Paragon NTFS.
- shoo_pl 5y agoIt's actually exFAT thats portable. NTFS is mostly for windows users, and macs do support it - though only reading.
- harry8 5y agoAnyone know why? Given ext2 has had a public domain implementation for more than a decade? Is it because windows & mac won't support ext2 even for free? Seems like a better lowest common denominator fs than any of the fats?
- shikoba 5y agoYou can't use easily ext2 on an external storage because of permissions.
- harry8 5y agoIsn't that how it's mounted that matters there?
- shikoba 5y agoI never find an option to ignore permissions.
- MisterTea 5y agoThat's because Linux and OSX ignore NTFS permissions making it work more like FAT. Plug an existing NTFS drive from one Windows system into another Windows system and you get a similar issue where opening a home directory requires you to take ownership.
- shikoba 5y agoBut Linux refuse to ignore permissions on an ext2.
- cerved 5y ago
- Macha 5y agoBuy an external hard drive or USB stick, unless it's marketed as "for Mac", it's going to ship formatted as NTFS.
- cerved 5y agomemory cards are FAT32
- yakubin 5y agoIME most external hard drives and USB sticks are marketed as compatible with both Windows and Mac, and ship formatted with FAT32. But maybe I'm the odd one here.
- salamandersauce 5y agoMost these days ship as exFAT.
- evgen 5y agoLiterally NONE of the 100s of Tb I have purchased over the past year in formats ranging from SD card to USB stick to SATA drives have been formatted as NTFS. None of them.
- TickleSteve 5y agoAre you confusing NTFS with FAT32? NTFS is pretty much limited to internal drives on Windows PCs.
- piskov 5y agoConsidering the userbase, everyone formats using NTFS (if they want files more than 4GB), so it’s de facto standard due to the sheer quantity. ExFat is great cross-option, though, without the limitations of fat32.
- darkwater 5y agoAndroid SD cards userbase is probably comparable or even bigger nowadays. And those use fat32 or exFAT AFAIK.
- zeusk 5y agoI'd guess not since big G has been on the push to abolish external storage - and I wouldn't blame them, really hard to put data (especially application data) on hotplug removable storage. The camera world has been using exFAT since quite a while.
- CTOSian 5y agoext3 is way more portable... even under *BSDs .. "NTFS... de facto standard"? ... from M$ lolz
- anthk 5y agoExt3 sucks under BSD's, a lot of them can't write to the volume, doesn't matter either EXT2, 3, or 4. UDF as I stated works fine with udfclient under OpenBSD and it could be "mountable" even with base tools (read /usr/local/share/doc/pkg-readmes/udfclient in order to correctly format it with udfclient). I copied files back and forth on USB drives written in under OpenBSD and the volumes mounted like magic under Linux. And the performance is not bad at all.
- xxs 5y ago>NTFS is the de facto filesystem for portable data storage That would be either FAT32 or exFAT
- wumpus 5y ago> NTFS is the de facto filesystem for portable data storage I've never seen it used that way, guess I'm weird. One hopes that the people who do use it will work on it, but given the patent fiasco with exFAT, I wouldn't either look at or use the code, personally.
- vanderZwan 5y agoI dual boot between Linux and Windows on my laptop, and I use three physical hard drives: two SSDs, each dedicated to a different OS, and one hybrid HDD with more storage that's "shared" between the two (and also used as a simple way off passing data between them). Maybe things have changed now but NTFS was the only reliable option for that last drive when I first set things up this way a few years ago.
- rkagerer 5y agoMe neither. I'm not sure what's up with all the talk here about NTFS for portable storage. If "portable" is meant as in USB key, I've never encountered one formatted that way. If it's portable as in a disk in an enclosure, then I suppose I can follow the rationale.
- beermonster 5y ago> NTFS is the de facto filesystem for portable data storage FAT32 needs to be used if you want to maximise portability
- anthk 5y agoUDF if you don't care about printers or Android.
- cout 5y agoCan you explain what you mean by "portable data storage"? I'm used to hearing the word "portable" used to mean "cross platform", but if it is not supported well under Linux, then given how widely used Linux is, I would think ntfs would not count as cross platform.
- tasogare 5y agoLinux on the desktop (where portability of file system matters) is 2% at the very best. Hardly what one would call "widely used".
- Macha 5y agoHonestly ntfs-3g is fine. It's slow, which I'd always blamed on NTFS since NTFS is also clearly slow for large directories of small files on Windows also, but apparently this new driver is better in that regard.
- Sebb767 5y agoI'm pretty sure that the grandparent meant portable quite literally, as in you can take it with you. Things like USB sticks, external hard drives, sd cards etc..
- cout 5y agoThat was the impression I was getting, hence my question. But since thumb drives typically come preformatted in either FAT32 or exFAT, I thought maybe there was a third possible use of the word "portable" that I am unfamiliar with.
- Delk 5y agoExternal hard drives with larger capacities and potentially larger files might be a use case for NTFS. While it isn't fast, ntfs-3g has worked fine for basic use for me. Someone said in another comment that ntfs-3g is unmaintained, though, which was news to me, and obviously not a great thing if true. I suppose exFAT might be a viable option for larger external drives as well due to its higher file size limit. None of the other commonly used file systems (including native Linux file systems) seemed easy to use from both Linux and Windows the last time I looked into it.
- arbitrage 5y ago> NTFS is the de facto filesystem for portable data storage, are you high right now? 'cause you sound like you're on drugs when you say things like that.
- in2duer 5y agoI don't think the person's high. Just another ignorant person who wanted some HN karma by posting a comment which makes them look knowledgable. Very close to what I am doing now.
- dang 5y agoHey can you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and breaking the site guidelines? We ban that sort of account. I don't want to ban you but we've had to ask you about this before. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.
- pmontra 5y agoPortable means that you can stick a USB pendrive in your car, speaker, TV, printer and be able to at least read the media on it. exFAT or FAT32 are the standard here, not NTFS. Computers are easier to deal with, there might be obscure programs that can read and write any known file system format despite what the kernel supports.
- 2muchcoffeeman 5y agoWay back there was a contributor Con Kolivas, that made scheduler improvements to make desktop computing nicer. But he quit because they never gave priority to desktop stuff. I remember back then it was not uncommon for your mouse cursor to just freeze and then come back to life. The kernel group has different priorities to end users
- specialist 5y agoThat's rough. I've had similar experiences. TDLR: Needful, worthy improvements require champions. A thankless role. And few of us have the resources and tenacity to serve the champion role for the long haul. In trying to understand organizational psychology and apparent apathy, I keep thinking of Stephen Jay Gould's theory of "punctuated equilibrium" meets the attention economy. Metaphorically, organizations (and people) are information processors. Attention is our scarcest resource. We're all doing triage, at every level. Just trying to cope with the torrent of information, discerning signal from noise. Trying to prioritize efforts. So it's almost inevitable that needful, useful, worthy things remain neglected, undone. Even in the absence of pushback. Until some kind of crisis. When the neglected thing suddenly becomes very important. Cue the fire drill. Something must be done. The champion must be watchful, ready, proactive. Seize that very brief opportunity to sneak in their needful improvement. Ahead of the all the spazs pitching their weird and wrong and ignorant reactive proposals. The only winning strategy is to just keep pushing. Patiently, diplomatically. Be that useful thing that everyone's dimly aware of. "Oh, wasn't Con Kolivas working on that mouse jitter thing? Ya, I heard it's pretty good. Ah, it's ready to go? Cool, let's do it." If your needful thing is truly worthy, be confident that eventually it'll percolate to the top of the triage stack. This game truly sucks. But I don't see how it could be any other way with our current decision making structures.
- touisteur 5y agoYou'll need someone working almost full time on this (like Jens Axboe on io_uring). I'm wondering whether it's some emergent behaviour to make sure you'll maintain the thing on the long-term and not just dump the thing on a subsystem guy and see ya!
- m-p-3 5y agoPersonally I've seen more ExFAT volumes on external storage in the wild than NTFS nowadays.
- puzzlingcaptcha 5y agoAs everyone seems to be fixated on pendrives and FAT, consider also that virtually every Linux-based consumer-grade NAS needs to support R/W NTFS. Typically it was through FUSE with considerable loss of performance/efficiency.
- tomxor 5y agoThe parent said "de facto filesystem for portable data storage", NAS for Windows is a very specific use case. For data portability, compatibility and wide adoption matters, and that is undoubtedly where FAT and it's variants rule.
- Denvercoder9 5y ago> consider also that virtually every Linux-based consumer-grade NAS needs to support R/W NTFS Do they? I don't think egress/ingress from external drives is an essential feature for consumer-grade NAS. Internal drives are typically formatted with a Linux-native filesystem and accessed through SMB/Samba from Windows machines.
- puzzlingcaptcha 5y ago> I don't think egress/ingress from external drives is an essential feature for consumer-grade NAS Is it not? I think most consumer NASes on the market support NTFS-formatted external drives (be that USB or eSATA) and need a r/w capable driver.
- tomxor 5y ago> NTFS is the de facto filesystem for portable data storage No, that would be exFAT and FAT32. Some form of FAT is basically supported by everything, which is why if anything is the "de facto" for portability, it's FAT. FAT is the netBSD of FS.
- ksec 5y ago>Seriously, such a well funded, high profile project like Linux should be more receptive to key QoL improvements and drivers. I guess politics gets in the way?
- EastToWest 5y agoNot necessarily politics. It could be purely due to lack of interest from maintainers and reviewers.
- pjc50 5y ago> well funded Is it? The kernel has a billion users who pay $0 for it. Most of the work is done by volunteers still. Oracle and RedHat have a few people looking at it full-time, and then Linus himself. This patchset is maintained by a third-party, Paragon, who also have an NTFS-for-Macs solution. Hence: >> We simply don't have anybody to funnel new filesystems Also I see the new polite kernel is going well: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/YO8LOKR%2FvRUgggTx@casper.infradead.org/ https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/YO8LOKR%2FvRUgggTx@casper.infra...
- shp0ngle 5y agoLinux is on every Android phone. You can argue whether it's "real linux" or not, but that is besides the point with respect to filesystem drivers? (I don't have a clue what does Android actually use for filesystem drivers, but I would _guess_ it's just Linux down there.)
- pjc50 5y ago> Linux is on every Android phone Yes, and almost all consumer routers and quite a lot of other random pieces of hardware. Hence the billions of users. How many of those pay for upstream maintainers? > I don't have a clue what does Android actually use for filesystem drivers "Yaffs" or "sparse" (which is just fancy ext2). https://source.android.com/devices/bootloader/images https://source.android.com/devices/bootloader/images ; most Android kernels will also have exfat so they can use SD cards and USB sticks.
- EastToWest 5y agoLinux is well funded in the sense that corporations put big money looking after their own interest in the kernel. Anything outside of their respective areas of interest? Good luck. Paragon, for better or worse, is just yet another corporation. They shouldn't really expect other corporations or volunteers to care much about their code, other than the fact that their code may break others'. Now that they have Linus' blessing, they can just send a pull request. The work paid off in the end.