# [SOLVED]NTFS write supported?

## Kasumi_Ninja

In the kernel there is an option available to write to ntfs filesystem. Does this mean I can mount an rw an ntfs filesystem? Just like I do with fat32? Or are there problems to be expected?

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## NeddySeagoon

HXC,

Kernel ntfs write is safe but very limited. You can only change the contents of existing files without changing the file size.

There is a package called captive, which is a wrapper for the Windows ntfs filesystem software, so you get full windows functions but its been unmaintained for a while now. You can expect bit rot to set in.

Don't try either of them on a filesystem thats not expendable.

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## Kasumi_Ninja

Thanks for the quick and clear answer! I have one question left; what would you advice me to use as filesystem? I have a large hardisk (250GB) divided into three partitions. I would like to use a fast filesystem ( I am using fat32 now) with the possibility to easily recover files. As far as I know none of linux filesystems (reiserfs, ext and xfs) offer the possibilty to easily recover files (in comparision to ntfs, fat32). As i have found out the hard way with my reiserfs parttion   :Crying or Very sad: 

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## NeddySeagoon

HXC,

No journalled filesystem makes it easy to recover files and Linux deliberately does not have an undelete function.

You would be able to undelete any users files and that would be a security issue.

It you want to recover files you deleted accidently, ext2 is better than ext3 but a 250Gb filesystem will take hours (days ?) to fsck after a power loss.

You should back up your important data

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## arwing

 *HXC wrote:*   

> Thanks for the quick and clear answer! I have one question left; what would you advice me to use as filesystem? 

  This depends on what you plan to put on these partitions.

What I gather, ext3 is a good general purpose Linux fs, reiserfs is the best for many very small files, and xfs is best for large files.  Fat32 is best for reading and writing to files from both linux and windows, but if you don't have a need to read files from both Linux and Windows you should stay clear of it.  NTFS is best for files you will only need to modify in windows.

For me, the fear of file corruption outweighs the need to undelete files, thus a journalled FS is best choice.  

I have a 15GB reiserfs for gentoo, 15gb NTFS for windows, one really big XFS and one really big FAT32.

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## clintpatty

[quote="arwing"] *HXC wrote:*   

> What I gather, ext3 is a good general purpose Linux fs, reiserfs is the best for many very small files, and xfs is best for large files.

 

I read this too.  For me, XFS outperforms ext3 for large files.  However, ext3 with full journaling, journal data mode, b tree hashing, etc optimizations beats Reiser3.

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## Kasumi_Ninja

After reading lots of information I finally decided to use ext3.This thread did em decide to use ext3:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-305871-highlight-ext2+tune2fs.html

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## pilo

Actually, there is a FUSE-module to enable more write support with NTFS.

See http://wiki.linux-ntfs.org/doku.php?id=ntfsmount

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## Kasumi_Ninja

Xandros 4 will support ntfs read-write:

 *Quote:*   

> NTFS
> 
> Now you can read and write to a Windows NTFS partition.

 

Source:[url] http://www.xandros.com/ads/preorder_desktop.html?utm_source=xandroshomepage&utm_medium=rotatingbanner&utm_term=&utm_content=preorder&utm_campaign=desktoppremium[/url]

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## dballanc

I don't know if it would help you, but on my dual boot machine I've had a lot of luck using a shared ext3 partition for data.  The driver for XP at www.fs-driver.org has worked well so far.  It doesn't have permissions support, but it's good enough for my needs. .

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## Kasumi_Ninja

 *dballanc wrote:*   

> I don't know if it would help you, but on my dual boot machine I've had a lot of luck using a shared ext3 partition for data.  The driver for XP at www.fs-driver.org has worked well so far.  It doesn't have permissions support, but it's good enough for my needs. .

 

I now use a heavily optimized ext3 partition. Thanks for the link it looks like agood driver for XP  :Smile: 

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## pilo

Just for variety: EXT2IFS

Has worked pretty good for me, but I recall some trouble when I tried it with XP SP2.

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## rada

EXT2IFS works well for me as well but everytime I mount it in Windows then boot back into Gentoo a fsck is done which takes upwards of 10mins on my ~200GB partition.  Is there any way around this?

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