Re: David --- Re: WRITING to NTFS drives
On Wed, 2019-03-13 at 11:12 -0400, deb wrote:
> On 3/12/19 9:50 PM, David Christensen wrote:
> > On 3/11/19 11:13 AM, 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?
> > >
> > >
> > > [if you have direct experience with this]
> > >
> > > what process/tool(s) do you use to validate the writes?
> > >
> > >
> > > What are other places to ask this?
> > >
> > >
> > > Thank you!
> >
> > On 3/12/19 4:40 PM, deb wrote:
> > > I'm faced with people running everywhere with these things, and
> > > dozens of drives.
> >
> > Writing to NTFS file systems using Debian has worked for me for the
> > current and past few releases of Debian Stable. It is not a common
> > use-case for me any more, so I'll refrain from making comments.
> >
> >
> > However, it seems like you have a large sneaker net with many
> > sneakers
> > and even more feet. My experiences with a few sneakers and two
> > feet
> > prompted me to pursue better solutions (Ethernet network, file
> > server,
> > version control server, backups, archives, images, etc.). I am
> > curious why you don't do the same?
> >
> >
> > David
> >
> >
>
> Brace yourself.
>
> They take the drives back and forth *Home*.
>
> (As well as back & forth to clients)..
>
> There is equal volume pumping around the LAN as well.
It appears you have a problem that is more managerial in nature than
technical, that the best technical measures can do no more than
mitigate.
Scary. My employment was in a US DoD agency that was pretty careful
about information assurance generally, where such activity was forbidden
and punished if found. I do not like to think about having to make it
work.
I contacted a relative who does this routinely. Windows alternately, I
contacted a relative who does this routinely about the initial queston
about writing to NTFS file systems from Linux and Windows alternately.
Although he does this in a dual boot environment, and with either Ubuntu
or Mint, they should be similar enough to Debian and the proposed use to
be meaningful.
He did not report problems with NTFS as such, but mentioned possible
OneDrive sync issues and inability of Linux to write to a Windows drive
if it was closed down in a locked state. I knew nothing of such a
"locked state" and Google search for it indicated only issues that
suggest prior file system corruption that needed chkdsk or SFC (and
possibly bootrec, or even Windows refresh or reinstall), so probably not
a meaningful barrier.
Prior testing would be appropriate, with verification of the 90% or more
most common use cases, maybe with help of a relatively knowledgable user
or a few of them.
Tom Dial
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