Suggestions on ideal filesystem for backup usb drive (unassigned devices) NTFS vs. EXFAT vs. XFS

[Frostyfruit]

Hi all,

I'm looking to setup a 16TB external hard drive on my unraid server as a backup. The ideal scenario is that this is used encase unraid goes down. 

I'd love to be able to use the drive on Windows & MacOS natively. I'm leaning towards EXFAT, but wanted to if anyone had any other suggestions. This will be used to store large production video files - so a lot of files larger than 4GB

Thanks

[EDACerton]

If your intent is to use the drive for backup, I wouldn't use exFAT - the filesystem doesn't provide resiliency features (e.g., journaling), which would make it much more susceptible to data loss during a recovery-causing event.

 

If you want to use the drive with both Windows and Mac, I'd probably go with NTFS -- you'd just need to set up your Mac to be able to write to the drive using something like Paragon or ntfs-3g.

Edited April 2, 2023 by EDACerton

[Hoopster]

25 minutes ago, Frostyfruit said:

I'd love to be able to use the drive on Windows & MacOS natively

I have my backup USB drives that mount via UD for backup formatted in NTFS for using natively with Windows.  I have no Macs to worry about so NTFS works great.  As mentioned above, there are apparently ways to use NTFS with Macs as well.

[Frostyfruit]

Thanks this is good to know! I was leaning towards NTFS as we are mostly windows based but wasnt sure how rubust it would be. It would be my preference over ExFAT as my understanding would be its a little more robust (could be wrong).

thanks for the suggestions!

[sota]

Given my backup methodology relies on a Windows VM to execute the backup, I went with NTFS.

 

See sig for link to what i do.

[MrGrey]

If people (other than you; only knowing windoze) might have to recover information and plug a USB drive into a windows computer and hope to recover data, then NTSF is the way to go. I backup stuff that way... I hate admitting it.

 

<preaching> Teach your family that Windows is a very, very bad, bad way </preaching>

 

MrGrey.