FreeBSD with external storage disks (fs)

L

lgol04

How mature is FreeBSD for reading file systems?

It is perfectly possible to read/write file systems such as ext3 and ext4, using the ext2fs module that FreeBSD provides. However, I saw reports here on the forum that using ext2fs would be risky, due to the risk of data corruption or any other problem.

For Microsoft file systems, we have the ntfs-3g for read/write in NTFS disks which should probably have been ported to FreeBSD. I assume it would be reliable to use.

For XFS fs, apparently the implementation is not complete according to the manual, only reading data is allowed.

If I need to format a disk that needs to be used in both FreeBSD and Linux, which file system should I adopt? exFAT? UFS? ext?

In summary, how is file system compatibility on FreeBSD?
 
If it needs to work on both systems ext4 will work. I don't know about others. I moved all my external storage to UFS myself. I no longer have any Linux systems though.
 
LibreQuest said:
If it needs to work on both systems ext4 will work. I don't know about others. I moved all my external storage to UFS myself. I no longer have any Linux systems though.
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Thanks for you anwser!

The ext4 seems a good filesystem to use in external disk, with the FreeBSD and Linux. However, this fs is not supported in Windows, which is no problem. I was thinking in FFS (OpenBSD fs) or UFS, but it's a difficult choice. The exFAT fs is good, because is supported in any system.

PS: Softraid in OpenBSD, if I'm not mistaken, allows filesystem encryption, which is a good solution for cryptography.
 
Do you want the same disks to be bootable between FreeBSD and Linux or are you talking about separate data devices?
What version of FreeBSD?
If FreeBSD at least 13.x and separate data devices, I would use ZFS. Worst case you should do "zpool export" on both systems before shutting down and then "zpool import" on the other system after booting up.
 
mer said:
Você deseja que os mesmos discos sejam inicializáveis entre o FreeBSD e o Linux ou está falando de dispositivos de dados separados?
Qual versão do FreeBSD?
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No, just files storage on my external disks, which I can access the files on both FreeBSD and Linux. I don't use FreeBSD yet, I'm studying it to start using it.
 
lgol04 said:
No, just files storage on my external disks, which I can access the files on both FreeBSD and Linux. I don't use FreeBSD yet, I'm studying it to start using it.
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That's good information. ZFS may not be a native filesystem on your Linux distribution, but it should be available I think Ubuntu makes it available. I would create the zpool (a ZFS term) under Linux and then once you get comfortable with FreeBSD try importing it.
 
mer said:
That's good information. ZFS may not be a native filesystem on your Linux distribution, but it should be available I think Ubuntu makes it available. I would create the zpool (a ZFS term) under Linux and then once you get comfortable with FreeBSD try importing it.
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Thanks for the help!

I will use FreeBSD with my main system after my studies, so I will use the ZFS as a main filesystem in my SSD NVMe. The cool thing is that there is OpenZFS for Windows, so I believe I will be able to use my external disks in ZFS on Windows.

Therefore, I will consider ZFS as a strong candidate, although I have the possibility to partition my disks and format them with different file systems.
 
LibreQuest said:
I believe there is support for EXT4 on Windows.
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Does not support.

Microsoft always promises that it will make compatibility available, but to date it has not been implemented. I believe it is for strategic reasons.

Well, on Windows there only fs are supported: FAT32, extFAT and NTFS.
 
lgol04 said:
Does not support.

Microsoft always promises that it will make compatibility available, but to date it has not been implemented. I believe it is for strategic reasons.

Well, on Windows there only fs are supported: FAT32, extFAT and NTFS.
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You should be able to configure a hostname file on openbsd for tethering as well. I don't know exactly the configuration you would need or your device name but I believe I have used tethering on openbsd in the past as well while testing.

Should be something like hostname.urndis <-- likely incorrect. It's been a while. :D

https://man.openbsd.org/urndis.4
 
A much better option is to have an external NAS (network attach storage) and linux or freebsd NFS mount the exported dir from that location. This is how I do it on my local network.
 
elgrande said:
I never had problems with exFAT as plain file storage.
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Me too. It's quite difficult to have a problem with this file system.

I'm now switching to ZFS in my external hard drives because it's a full fs. For USB storage and SD Card, I think the exFAT is the best option.
 
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