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It's hard to believe that file system incompatibility is still a thing in this day and age. I wish you could just plug a drive into a computer and not worry abo

It's hard to believe that file system incompatibility is still a thing in this day and age. I wish you could just plug a drive into a computer and not worry about which filesystem it's using, whether it be EXT4, APFS, HFS, NTFS, etc. Seems like FAT/ExFAT is still the only option and as someone who uses multiple operating systems, having to worry about filesystems drives me crazy.

jojobas 4y ago
I wonder how you think this could work. Everyone converging on The One Filesystem, and miraculously supporting all filesystems from the past? Something new is invented in the area every few years, would you have that stop, so as not to break compatibility?
- mikepurvis 4y ago
  Linux support for NTFS is pretty good these days; that's one candidate for it. Another would be if Windows adopted ext4 or btrfs. The latter seems most likely since it offers interesting user-facing features around snapshotting and integrity.
  - Tijdreiziger 4y ago
    ExFAT works for removable drives, and you probably don’t need OS drives to have the same filesystem.
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      Read only access would be nice. Sometimes you might want to copy out some files stored on the other OS drive.
  - jojobas 4y ago
    At the very least you'd have to forgo all the benefits of ext4 in terms of fragmentation and performance, zfs seamless volume management and countless other things, all for the ability to once in a decade swap a hard drive from one machine to another?
- vouaobrasil 4y ago
  Well it would be great if the major vendors provided open-source, cross platform implementations for other OSes. Like Apple maintained an official APFS driver for Windows and Linux, Microsoft did the same for Linux and MacOS, etc.
MereInterest 4y ago
And even with exFAT, permissions will be borked up. So it would be suitable for media hard drive, but wouldn't be suitable (for example) as the mount point of /home in a Linux partition that is also readable from a Windows partition.
- rawling 4y ago
  Can a file system enforce permissions against an OS that doesn't want to respect them, short of encrypting everything and demanding the host OS supply the key?
  - mikepurvis 4y ago
    No it can't. This is why FDE is a thing— the moment you can talk to the disk from another system, you have root.
  - MereInterest 4y ago
    Nope, not at all. What I'd want is for the file permissions to be stored when mounting in the Linux partition, and to be read-only when mounted in the Windows partition.
stingraycharles 4y ago
Why is that so hard to believe? Generally filesystems aren’t designed to be super portable, but rather reliable, scalable and fast. If you’re using one disk/filesystem with multiple operating systems, you are absolutely an outlier, not the general use case. The only reason that FAT is somewhat portable is that it’s extremely simple and limited. This is also the reason why you absolutely do not want to use it for anything else than USB sticks and the likes.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > If you’re using one disk/filesystem with multiple operating systems, you are absolutely an outlier, not the general use case. Well... transferring large amount of data between at least Windows and macOS is pretty common in the media/movie/entertainment business, and add Linux to the mix if you're in a development shop.
  - anthk 4y ago
    UDF.
  - stingraycharles 4y ago
    But surely these businesses will be using a NAS, rather than using a single physical disk on multiple OS’es?
    - mschuster91 4y ago
      Nothing beats the bandwidth of a truck full of drives on a highway. Shipping large quantities of data - we're talking about dozens of terabytes sometimes - via disk is still incredibly common. The problem is: while ExFAT has alleviated a lot of issues on disk storage as a sort-of common enough format, there still is no cross-platform disk encryption standard. TrueCrypt/VeraCrypt is, but support is third-party and some companies refuse to use it on security grounds, so usually it's ZIP and sometimes RAR files with passwords. Sigh.
      - 4y ago
nyanpasu64 4y ago
WinBtrfs has (in my limited read-only testing) worked to allow opening btrfs filesystems on Windows, though ntfs2btrfs generates corrupted filesystems which lock up into read-only mode upon certain Linux operations. I have not tested https://github.com/relalis/macos-btrfs https://github.com/relalis/macos-btrfs but it exists FWIW.
azangru 4y ago
What's people's opinion on ExFAT these days? I have a Linux laptop and a Macbook, and have been agonizing over which file system to use for an external hard drive. It looks like ExFAT is the only compatible option; but then people have been complaining how unreliable it is.
- bayindirh 4y ago
  I use Paragon's EXT3/4 drivers for macOS. The only problem is it changes the root directory's owner to root. Other than that, it's perfectly usable and performant. The application registers a proper filesystem driver, so it integrates everywhere, incl. Disk Utility and other tools. So you can use it like any other filesystem. Check, format, mount, partition, etc.
- Sakos 4y ago
  I just wouldn't. I've had more issues with exFAT than anything else. The only real issue with FAT32 is the 4GB file limit. I've resorted to things like FTP or Syncthing to transfer files between different operating systems, particularly if I have files larger than 4GB. Backup software generally uses small file sizes, so that's something where FAT32 works for all systems.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    The 2T limit is stating to get more annoying for FAt32 Too bad we never got FAT64
    - lxgr 4y ago
      Arguably, that's exactly what exFAT is (minus all the patent FUD, which by now also seems to be resolved).
- yabones 4y ago
  exFAT is fine in a pinch, but it's the only filesystem I've ever truly FUBAR'd by pulling a drive without ejecting. So long as you always safely remove and let the OS sync all the buffers it's probably okay. For data you really care about, it's probably best to use the HFS driver for Linux or the EXT4 driver for Mac, depending on which OS you use more, and where performance is more important.
reaperducer 4y ago
I wish you could just plug a drive into a computer and not worry about which filesystem it's using Or at least be able to download drivers for the file system you need. I think the Amiga had that ability. You could just plug in a library for the file system and read whatever disk you wanted to.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Yes it had, and all modern OSes have installable file systems. The problem isn't that they lack APIs, the problem is having someone implement the support for the desired file system format.

jojobas 4y ago

I wonder how you think this could work. Everyone converging on The One Filesystem, and miraculously supporting all filesystems from the past? Something new is invented in the area every few years, would you have that stop, so as not to break compatibility?

mikepurvis 4y ago
Linux support for NTFS is pretty good these days; that's one candidate for it. Another would be if Windows adopted ext4 or btrfs. The latter seems most likely since it offers interesting user-facing features around snapshotting and integrity.
- Tijdreiziger 4y ago
  ExFAT works for removable drives, and you probably don’t need OS drives to have the same filesystem.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    Read only access would be nice. Sometimes you might want to copy out some files stored on the other OS drive.
- jojobas 4y ago
  At the very least you'd have to forgo all the benefits of ext4 in terms of fragmentation and performance, zfs seamless volume management and countless other things, all for the ability to once in a decade swap a hard drive from one machine to another?
vouaobrasil 4y ago
Well it would be great if the major vendors provided open-source, cross platform implementations for other OSes. Like Apple maintained an official APFS driver for Windows and Linux, Microsoft did the same for Linux and MacOS, etc.

MereInterest 4y ago

And even with exFAT, permissions will be borked up. So it would be suitable for media hard drive, but wouldn't be suitable (for example) as the mount point of /home in a Linux partition that is also readable from a Windows partition.

rawling 4y ago
Can a file system enforce permissions against an OS that doesn't want to respect them, short of encrypting everything and demanding the host OS supply the key?
- mikepurvis 4y ago
  No it can't. This is why FDE is a thing— the moment you can talk to the disk from another system, you have root.
- MereInterest 4y ago
  Nope, not at all. What I'd want is for the file permissions to be stored when mounting in the Linux partition, and to be read-only when mounted in the Windows partition.

stingraycharles 4y ago

Why is that so hard to believe? Generally filesystems aren’t designed to be super portable, but rather reliable, scalable and fast. If you’re using one disk/filesystem with multiple operating systems, you are absolutely an outlier, not the general use case. The only reason that FAT is somewhat portable is that it’s extremely simple and limited. This is also the reason why you absolutely do not want to use it for anything else than USB sticks and the likes.

mschuster91 4y ago
> If you’re using one disk/filesystem with multiple operating systems, you are absolutely an outlier, not the general use case. Well... transferring large amount of data between at least Windows and macOS is pretty common in the media/movie/entertainment business, and add Linux to the mix if you're in a development shop.
- anthk 4y ago
  UDF.
- stingraycharles 4y ago
  But surely these businesses will be using a NAS, rather than using a single physical disk on multiple OS’es?
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    Nothing beats the bandwidth of a truck full of drives on a highway. Shipping large quantities of data - we're talking about dozens of terabytes sometimes - via disk is still incredibly common. The problem is: while ExFAT has alleviated a lot of issues on disk storage as a sort-of common enough format, there still is no cross-platform disk encryption standard. TrueCrypt/VeraCrypt is, but support is third-party and some companies refuse to use it on security grounds, so usually it's ZIP and sometimes RAR files with passwords. Sigh.
    - 4y ago

nyanpasu64 4y ago

WinBtrfs has (in my limited read-only testing) worked to allow opening btrfs filesystems on Windows, though ntfs2btrfs generates corrupted filesystems which lock up into read-only mode upon certain Linux operations. I have not tested https://github.com/relalis/macos-btrfs https://github.com/relalis/macos-btrfs but it exists FWIW.

azangru 4y ago

What's people's opinion on ExFAT these days? I have a Linux laptop and a Macbook, and have been agonizing over which file system to use for an external hard drive. It looks like ExFAT is the only compatible option; but then people have been complaining how unreliable it is.

bayindirh 4y ago
I use Paragon's EXT3/4 drivers for macOS. The only problem is it changes the root directory's owner to root. Other than that, it's perfectly usable and performant. The application registers a proper filesystem driver, so it integrates everywhere, incl. Disk Utility and other tools. So you can use it like any other filesystem. Check, format, mount, partition, etc.
Sakos 4y ago
I just wouldn't. I've had more issues with exFAT than anything else. The only real issue with FAT32 is the 4GB file limit. I've resorted to things like FTP or Syncthing to transfer files between different operating systems, particularly if I have files larger than 4GB. Backup software generally uses small file sizes, so that's something where FAT32 works for all systems.
- bombcar 4y ago
  The 2T limit is stating to get more annoying for FAt32 Too bad we never got FAT64
  - lxgr 4y ago
    Arguably, that's exactly what exFAT is (minus all the patent FUD, which by now also seems to be resolved).
yabones 4y ago
exFAT is fine in a pinch, but it's the only filesystem I've ever truly FUBAR'd by pulling a drive without ejecting. So long as you always safely remove and let the OS sync all the buffers it's probably okay. For data you really care about, it's probably best to use the HFS driver for Linux or the EXT4 driver for Mac, depending on which OS you use more, and where performance is more important.

reaperducer 4y ago

I wish you could just plug a drive into a computer and not worry about which filesystem it's using Or at least be able to download drivers for the file system you need. I think the Amiga had that ability. You could just plug in a library for the file system and read whatever disk you wanted to.

pjmlp 4y ago
Yes it had, and all modern OSes have installable file systems. The problem isn't that they lack APIs, the problem is having someone implement the support for the desired file system format.