On 11.03.2019 23:13, deb wrote:
I saw this question come up
and it set off bells.
Someone asked what the status of WRITING to NTFS drives was.
That it was not yet supported (?) .
*MY* Assumptions:
* MIXED NETWORK, with Win, Mac, Linux (EXT4 formatted).
* many portable 1-5TB drives making the rounds, formatted with NTFS.
* data loss is unacceptable [to the highest degree that is possible].
I know that I can read (and verify) files just fine from NTFS on
Debian 9.8
but [if you have direct experience with this]
is writing to these drives from debian actually safe?
Short answer: Yes, it is safe.
Long answer: Yes, but it depends, because NTFS is not just a bunch of
files, it has hidden metadata sections, journal, substream files,
junctions, windows-style ACLs and permissions, file compression, disk
quotas, file audit, probably more (hidden) features.
You've probably read my answer to that previous question about NTFS,
so I just want to add to that. Writing data\files to NTFS is fine as
long as you take into account that some of the features could be not
fully supported.
So you should be careful with writing\deleting\moving files on a
system partition (with installed windows os), but if you use NTFS with
Portable USB Storage devices it should be fine, as long as you(your
users) don't unplug USB connector as soon as progress bar of file
transfer process has reached 100%.
[if you have direct experience with this]
what process/tool(s) do you use to validate the writes?
Take into account that USB storage devices are quick to send data into
memory buffer, but much slower to actually write data to drive. So
"sync" command is useful to ensure data is fully written, before you
send command to unmount\eject the device and physically disconnect it
from USB port, otherwise data loss or filesystem corruption will occur.
What are other places to ask this?
You can go to homepage of "ntfs-3g" driver [1] and its support forums. [2]
Thank you!
[1] https://www.tuxera.com/community/ntfs-3g-advanced/
[2] https://forum.tuxera.com/