Which file system to use for portable hard drive shared among different operating systems?

Posted by Jonathon Watney on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by Jonathon Watney
Published on 2009-05-04T18:02:59Z Indexed on 2010/12/24 0:56 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 582

Filed under:

filesystems

|

usb

|

portable-harddrive

Something similar has been asked already but my criteria is a little different. I need to share a portable hard drive (USB/Firewire) between Mac OSX, Linux and Windows XP systems where the files being shared are sometimes >4GB. Is there a file system that is available out of the box on all these operating systems that support this and allows read/write access? If not, what's the next best solution in terms of installing additional software on these operating systems?

© Server Fault or respective owner

Related posts about filesystems

Question regarding filesystems true or false?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Hello all, though I'm familiar with stackoverflow , and loving it , i've actually got a couple of questions myself about something other then programming. Here are my question Is it true that in FAT filesystems the maximum number of files per filesystem equals the number of entries in the FAT table… >>> More
Filesystems for webserver with SATA and Solid State disk,

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
We have just ordered a new webserver with 120 Gb solid state disk and a SATA disk. I am trying to plan ahead what sort of filesystem to use. This system will be running Linux, Apache/Tomcat to host java services. The main service is a system where people can upload reasonably large files (in the… >>> More
To see virtual filesystems in Ubuntu

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
How can you see the virtual filesystems at root? They should be /proc and /dev. >>> More
How do filesystems handle concurrent read/write?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
User A asks the system to read file foo and at the same time user B wants to save his or her data onto the same file. How is this situation handled on the filesystem level? >>> More
Strange ZFS hidden filesystem problem

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Half of my ZFS filesystems are hidden in ZFS-fuse. Here's my story: So, I love ZFS. I used it for about six months on FreeBSD, but due to it crashing the kernel during heavy inter-filesystem IO load, I tried switching to Solaris 5.10. That was good, but when I attempted to do an import of my Version… >>> More

Related posts about usb

External HDD USB 3.0 failure

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
[ 2560.376113] usb 9-1: new high-speed USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd [ 2560.376186] usb 9-1: Device not responding to set address. [ 2560.580136] usb 9-1: Device not responding to set address. [ 2560.784104] usb 9-1: device not accepting address 2, error -71 [ 2560.840127] hub 9-0:1.0: unable… >>> More
usb mouse/keyboard doesn't work with 3.11.0-12-generic kernel

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I can't use my usb keyboard/mouse after upgrade from raring to saucy. The keyboard works in grub menu and if I boot with the previous kernel version (3.8.0-31-generic). My new kernel version is 3.11.0-12-generic. I've got Mad Catz R.A.T.7 wired USB mouse, Canyon CNL-MBMSO02 wired usb mouse and Logitech… >>> More
USB Drive Not recognized

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
My Friend's Pen Drive, which was working well very well just few days ago, is not being recognized after getting used by a virus affected machine. Its not on fdisk -l or lsusb However in dmesg I can see the following: [ 977.300013] usb 5-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2 [… >>> More
Error in installing ZTE AC2738 on ubuntu 3.0.0-12-generic

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I am getting this error ,struct usb_serial_driver has no member named shutdown. I am installing on 64bit ubuntu 3.0.0-12-generic ... Beginning Verify CD ... ... Verify CD Succeed! ... Beginning Copy Install Package Files ... ... will take a long time, waiting 5 seconds, please ... Copy Install… >>> More
HSDPA modem only working on certain USB ports

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
Depending on which USB port I use to connect my HSDPA modem, the network manager will connect to the internet or not. I used to work (i.e. established a internet connection automatically) on all ports, but over time it simply stopped on some ports. lsusb output in all cases looks like that (Device… >>> More