are there any drawback for using NTFS for linux?

I use linux for work (perform c++ calculations, latex) and I use windows for entertainment (dj software, tablet functionality). I'd like to access (read and write) to my linux partition from windows.

I heard coLinux is an answer but it will probably make things complicated.

So far i heard that the only problem with using NTFS for linux is it's slower. This is not good for work.

I was thinking partitioning my drive so that my home directory with all the config files is NTFS and the root and work directory is ext4. any drawbacks to that?

kirill_igum

Posted 2011-04-12T19:19:17.203

Reputation: 1 098

i chose to use ext3 for my home directory and use http://www.ext2fsd.com/ to access the linux data from windows 7.

– kirill_igum – 2011-05-03T17:49:11.533

Answers

The in-kernel driver for NTFS is outdated, so most of the time you use the ntfs3g driver with FUSE. FUSE is in user space, so it will be slightly slower, but it shouldn't be a big deal unless you're really hammering the system. I've only used it for large usb-flash-drives and recovering data from workstations, and didn't notice a huge performance hit.

Using NTFS for your home directory will definitely be better than using FAT32, but more than that, I couldn't say.

Ext4 is good for root, but it's less tolerant to power loss than ext3, if that's an issue.

Have you considered just running windows in VirtualBox or KVM? I know for 3d games it may not work, but it's a reasonable option for many things. And you can share your home directory from linux into your VM with a few mouse-clicks.

Kyle__

Posted 2011-04-12T19:19:17.203

Reputation: 624

i use virtual box under windows and run existing linux partition. i like 3d – kirill_igum – 2011-04-12T20:04:10.313

1what do you mean by power loss? i thought that ext4 is suppose to be more stable. – kirill_igum – 2011-04-12T20:08:18.283

Ext4 does a whole lot more write caching, so there's a much higher chance that what you wrote isn't actually on disk yet. For a more in depth, and probably coherent explanation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext4#Delayed_allocation_and_potential_data_loss

– Kyle__ – 2011-04-15T15:25:40.460

Yes. NTFS is not optimized for a linux-style environment. Additionally, the file-system is proprietary Microsoft, and closed-source... and Microsoft reserves the right to change their file-system at anytime without notice. Most implementations in Linux rely on largely reverse-engineered information and limited information gleaned directly from Microsoft on how to correctly implement it. Many of the optimizations in Windows under Linux are also disabled simply because of a lack of support or understanding on how to correctly implement them. With that in mind, there's always a change of a random bit of code writing bad bits of data to the volume causing irrevocable damage to the file-system. This is very similar to efforts of making ext2 file-systems available in Windows. At best it is risky. I would honestly suggest making use of the EXT2 in Windows option over the NTFS in linux, simply because EXT2 is very well documented, and supported.

TheCompWiz

Posted 2011-04-12T19:19:17.203

Reputation: 9 161

by ext2 you mean ext2, not ext3 (journaled) or ext4, right? i used to think that ntfs was more advanced than ext2 because ntfs has meta-journaling support. ur argument for openness of ext2 does make a point. – kirill_igum – 2011-04-12T20:01:33.937

ext3 is fully backwards-compatible with ext2. I believe ext4 is also. The down side is that under windows you won't benefit from journaling. – TheCompWiz – 2011-04-12T20:06:43.403