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Comment by azangru | Hacker News Reader

What's people's opinion on ExFAT these days? I have a Linux laptop and a Macbook, and have been agonizing over which file system to use for an external hard drive. It looks like ExFAT is the only compatible option; but then people have been complaining how unreliable it is.

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I use Paragon's EXT3/4 drivers for macOS. The only problem is it changes the root directory's owner to root. Other than that, it's perfectly usable and performant.

The application registers a proper filesystem driver, so it integrates everywhere, incl. Disk Utility and other tools. So you can use it like any other filesystem. Check, format, mount, partition, etc.

For external storage, I find it best to throw some cheap drives in an old desktop and run SAMBA. This allows me to use zfs on the drives, and SAMBA easily interfaces with Mac,Linux, and Windows.

exFAT is fine in a pinch, but it's the only filesystem I've ever truly FUBAR'd by pulling a drive without ejecting. So long as you always safely remove and let the OS sync all the buffers it's probably okay.

For data you really care about, it's probably best to use the HFS driver for Linux or the EXT4 driver for Mac, depending on which OS you use more, and where performance is more important.

exFAT is also the only FS I have had completely die on me like this. These days I only really use external storage for pirated movies to play on my TV so its no big deal. Everything else should be backed up in multiple places.

I just wouldn't. I've had more issues with exFAT than anything else. The only real issue with FAT32 is the 4GB file limit. I've resorted to things like FTP or Syncthing to transfer files between different operating systems, particularly if I have files larger than 4GB. Backup software generally uses small file sizes, so that's something where FAT32 works for all systems.

The 2T limit is stating to get more annoying for FAt32

Too bad we never got FAT64

Arguably, that's exactly what exFAT is (minus all the patent FUD, which by now also seems to be resolved).

Playing around with the default ExFAT setup and a USB3 connected SSD on Ubuntu (copying files over from another hard drive), I found ExFAT (at least in writes) too slow to use. I ended up formatting it at NTFS and it was much faster, it was going into a Windows machine anyway.

I’m curious about the use case for plugging one external drive into multiple computers in 2022, when storage is super cheap and networking is super fast.

If I need to expand storage or keep a hard backup, I dedicate drives to specific machines. If I need to move files between machines, I move them over the network.

Depends on what you mean by "super cheap". I know lots of non-techies who default their PC purchase to whatever is cheapest that seems to fit the bill at the time, and storage now typically can't be expanded after the fact. I just had a fun time updating my partner's 2.5 year-old MacBook to Monterey with a 47gb free space requirement on a 119gb drive.

> I’m curious about the use case for plugging one external drive into multiple computers in 2022, when storage is super cheap and networking is super fast.

I have an external drive for a media library, storing there videos I'd like to watch and audiobooks I'd like to listen. Over years, it's grown pretty large. I'd like to have read/write access to the library from either a Macbook or a linux laptop. The linux laptop is old, and might die soon; and I am not sure whether I'll be replacing it with another linux laptop, or will switch to the Macbook entirely. I know that some people recommend getting an NAS drive; but I don't have appropriate setup for it.

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