9

Curious if NTFS would be my best bet? I’ll have two m.2 drives, one with each OS on it, and then a bunch of drives connected to the mobo.

Would both OSes be able read/write to the drives with no issues?

I don’t think I’d ever drive share to MacOS but can that read/write as well?

Thanks!

chris thomas
  • 255
  • 2
    I have not had any issues with reading and writing to NTFS drives from both Ubuntu and Windows. However, one thing to remember is that Ubuntu will not run nor can it be installed into a NTFS partition. – Terrance Aug 06 '22 at 14:51
  • 1
    Thank you for your comment. Right, I won’t need the OS partition to be readable just the extra drives I have connected for data. – chris thomas Aug 06 '22 at 17:13
  • If you have multiple drives, you could have Ubuntu be on ext4 and Windows be on NTFS. I think linux can read/write NTFS but ext4 is native (not sure if that makes a difference) – qwr Aug 07 '22 at 07:54
  • 2
    Linux doesn't have filesystem repair tools (fsck, chkdsk) for NTFS, so if you can't read some files on Linux, repair the filesystem on Windows first. For exFAT, both Linux and Windows can repair it. – pts Aug 08 '22 at 00:51
  • 2
    Linux can be slower than Windows for both NTFS and exFAT, because it may be using an unoptimized driver. Measure the file read/write speed by copying a large file. Maybe Ubuntu 22.04 is fast for exFAT, I haven't checked. – pts Aug 08 '22 at 00:54
  • @pts, Yes, I have own experience that there is a significant difference. So there is a trade-off in speed with NTFS and in robustness (no journaling) with exFAT, when you need a file system, that works with Windows too. But often speed is not really critical, so I can still recommend NTFS for a shared data partition when dual booting Ubuntu and Windows. – sudodus Aug 08 '22 at 08:21
  • 1
    I agree with @pts, that you should use Microsoft tools to repair Microsoft file systems, NTFS, exFAT (and of course Linux tools to repair Linux file systems, for example ext4). – sudodus Aug 08 '22 at 08:24

2 Answers2

18

  • Yes, NTFS is a good file system for data (read and write access) from both operating systems (Linux and Windows), and it has a journal, which makes it robust.

  • For USB pendrives and memory cards you can also consider exFAT.

  • MacOS does not read standard Linux file systems (e.g. ext4), and not NTFS, but FAT32 and exFAT should work will all three 'main' OS systems.

You find more details at

Edit: In dual boot systems with Ubuntu and Windows, it is a good idea to turn off 'Fast Startup' in Windows, in order to avoid this 'semi-hibernation' that leaves the file systems [that were mounted by Windows] in a 'dirty' state.

sudodus
  • 46,324
  • 5
  • 88
  • 152
  • Perfect! Thank you for this answer! – chris thomas Aug 06 '22 at 17:12
  • 1
    @ChrisThomas, You are welcome and good luck with your dual boot system :-) – sudodus Aug 06 '22 at 17:17
  • 6
    There is a caveat for NTFS. If Windows was hibernated (or quick shut-down, which actually is logout+hibernation) then Linux driver for NTFS will see it as "not closed", which Ubuntu prefers to mount as Read Only. https://askubuntu.com/questions/70281/why-does-my-ntfs-partition-mount-as-read-only – PTwr Aug 07 '22 at 05:53
  • 4
    @PTwr, that's right. So it is a good idea to turn off 'Fast Startup' in Windows, in order to turn off this 'semi-hibernation' that leaves the mounted file systems in a 'dirty' state. – sudodus Aug 07 '22 at 08:00
  • 2
    Another caveat for exFAT is turned out Windows can't defrag nor easily resize the partition, not a problem with USB drives and memory cards, but for external HDD/SSD, it's something to keep in mind. – Martheen Aug 08 '22 at 04:29
  • 1
    Ubuntu may be more optimized for ext4. See the comments to the OP – qwr Aug 08 '22 at 05:22
2

Btrfs should also work, you'll need a driver tho, on Windows that is.

Dev4fuN
  • 21