Hello all,
I have recently bought an external 4tb drive for backups and having an image of another 2tb drive (in case it fails). The drives are used for cold storage (backups). I would like a prefference on the filesystem i should format it. From the factory, it comes with ntfs and that is ok but i wonder if it will be better with something like ext4. Being readable directly from windows won't be necessary (although useful) since i could just temporarily turn on ssh on the linux machine (or a local vm) and start copying.
Edit: the reason for this post is also to address an issue i had while backing up to an ntfs drive on linux. I had filesystem corruptions (thankfully fixed by chkdsk on a windows machine) and I would like to avoid that in the future.
Edit2: ok I have decided I will go with ext4. Now I am making the image of the first 2tb drive. Wish me luck!
22 Comments
toothbrush@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 24 pts · 2y
I recommentd ext4. Its extremely stable and easy to manage. Btrfs, zfs etc. is overkill for a pure data drive imo.
Bogasse@lemmy.ml · 12 pts · 2y
Although it depends of the backup format :
mbirth@lemmy.mbirth.uk · 5 pts · 2y
This! And I’d probably add par2 parity files - just in case some bitrot happens.
Laser@feddit.de · 7 pts · 2y
I can't tell if this is actual advice or irony
friend_of_satan@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 2y
zfs is made for data integrity. I wouldn't use anything else for my backups. If a file is corrupted, it will tell you which file when it encounters a checksum error while reading the file.
lemmyvore@feddit.nl · 2 pts · 2y
Can it recover the error?
refalo@programming.dev · 6 pts · 2y
if you're also using raidz or mirroring in zfs, then yes. it can also do encryption and deduplication
friend_of_satan@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y
If there is a redundant block then it will auto recover and just report what happened. Redundancy can be set up with multiple disks or by having a single disk write blocks to multiple places by setting the "copies" property to more than 1.
tiny@midwest.social · 15 pts · 2y
If your Linux distro is using btrfs you can format it to btrfs and use btrfs send for backups. Otherwise the filesystem shouldn't be to big if a deal unless you want to restore files from a Windows machine. If that is the case use ntfs
wallmenis@lemmy.one · 2 pts · 2y
I use fedora 40 kinoite which uses btrfs but i am not sure i trust it enough for this data. Also forgot to mention in original post that I had some problems when overwriting files in ntfs which caused corruption. Thankfully chkdsk on a windows machine fixed that but I wouldn't like for that to happen again when backing up from a linux machine.
atzanteol@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 2y
NTFS has never been well supported on Linux. Any native filesystem will be fine.
terminhell@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 2y
Are you sharing this drive with windows machines? It may be better to go exfat or something more neutral in that case.
wallmenis@lemmy.one · 1 pts · 2y
Yeah but I'd rather have something with a journaling system that might make recovery easier. I don't have any issue with temporarily connecting the drive to my pi and then moving the files via sftp (or spinning a vm via hyper-v/wsl). Also I don't have much experience with CoW filesystems like zfs and btrfs and I am scared to mess with them in case I cause data loss by accident. So ext4 it is...
Samueru@lemmy.ml · 15 pts · 2y
Btrfs
skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl · 11 pts · 2y
kbal@fedia.io · 6 pts · 2y
I'd use ext4 for that, personally. You might also consider using full-disk encryption (redhat example) if there's going to be any data on there you wouldn't want a burglar to have. Obviously it wouldn't do much good if you don't encrypt the other disk as well, but having a fresh one to try it out on makes things easier.
wwwgem@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 2y
There was just a similar post here. You may find interesting clues there as well.
WarmApplePieShrek@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 2y
ext4 is the linux equivalent of ntfs
fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 2y
Buck the trend, put APFS on those bad boys.
downhomechunk@midwest.social · 2 pts · 2y
Or, kick it old school with reiserFS
wallmenis@lemmy.one · 1 pts · 2y
Not bad idea.
LeFantome@programming.dev · 3 pts · 2y
Well, given the current state of the Open Source driver, I think it is a bad idea.
Although, I guess if you can tolerate closed source….
https://www.paragon-software.com/business/apfs-linux/
wallmenis@lemmy.one · 2 pts · 2y
I was kidding...