MX Linux Forum

I use MX Linux 23.2 by 98% of the time. For 2% of the time I use Windows. However, my largest data partition is formatted in NTFS, which I can access from both: Linux and Windows.

Should I reformat the abovementioned data partition to ext4?

If I do this, I will have problems accessing data from Windows (a rare situation). The question is, will I gain anything in return? Data security is my priority.

What do you mean by data security, not losing data to corruption?

I think Linux accessing ext4 is more safe than NTFS, there are also ways to read ext4 partition from Windows see the first couple of responses here: https://superuser.com/questions/37512/h ... on-windows

Guru's correct me if I'm wrong, but Windows isn't considered safe when writing to ext4.
I use a windows extension to be able to read ext4 from my MX files. When writing data from W10, I use a shared USB on my router to write from W10 then copy over using MX.
I use a Windows system (separate system, not dual boot).
This way I know all Linux file info data on ext4 is preserved which is my priority.

Wirtualny wrote: ↑Thu Mar 21, 2024 11:16 am Should I reformat the abovementioned data partition to ext4?

If I do this, I will have problems accessing data from Windows (a rare situation). The question is, will I gain anything in return? Data security is my priority.

What, in exact words, do you know or believe ext4 does better or differently than NTFS, with respect to data security?

Windows isn't considered safe when writing to ext4.

User seems to need to access data from ext4 very seldom, nothing was mentioned about writing to it, the solutions I linked to are for reading ext4 (ext2read and LinuxReader)

Adrian wrote: ↑Thu Mar 21, 2024 11:21 am What do you mean by data security, not losing data to corruption?

Yes.

User seems to need to access data from ext4 very seldom

Yes, but when I use Windows I modify files, not only read them. Anyway, I could live without it as a trade-off if it would give me more security in terms of a smaller risk of data corruption.

Yeah, I think writing to ext4 from Linux should be safer than writing to NTFS. But you also need to have backups, that's the most important way to protect your data.

I have a data drive NTFS, especially done that way so I can access it in any os, win or lin.

I care more about my ability to access the files than the safety there.. nobody else uses my system.

Thank you for all the answers!

I will take the most important data to ext4 then.

all of the files on an ntfs mount have full read write execut access under linux.
All those multicolor directory listings show up as all green.

So that might be a negative.. I know that I didn't care for that.

Those comments about safety.. I doubt that they were referring to somebody else using your data.. it was probably safe from data loss. I guess that is a possibility when running a non native file system.. both ways linux under windows and windows under linux. Although I would think that SMART enabled in the bios should help with data integrity.

I have never accessed ext4 from windows, so I can't speak to that. It it was me and I really needed to share storage, I would leave the NTFS. Mostly because that is what I have done so I know it.

But Myself, I run a server and do file sharing from there. That way, I have more storage and no problems with file system conflicts. I don't know if that is an option for you, but I think worth considering.

I never had a lick of trouble reading and writing to NTFS with MX-Linux, except for one caveat: all files and directories would mount with full Read-Write-Execute (777) permissions. Not good at all! Fortunately, a solution that works perfectly was posted by 'fehlix' here...
viewtopic.php?p=745313#p745313

TTwrs wrote: ↑Sat Mar 23, 2024 4:35 pm I never had a lick of trouble reading and writing to NTFS with MX-Linux, except for one caveat: all files and directories would mount with full Read-Write-Execute (777) permissions. Not good at all! Fortunately, a solution that works perfectly was posted by 'fehlix' here...
viewtopic.php?p=745313#p745313

I remember that thread and I concur. The only caveat to be aware of is that by permanently changing the file permissions on mounted drives, you can lose the ability to execute programs stored on those drives. If you're just saving data to a USB stick this isn't a problem, but if one of those files is, say, a Linux binary or shell script meant to detect bitrot on that USB stick, you may not be able to simply run it from a terminal once its permissions will have been changed. This isn't necessarily good or bad, it's just a side effect of making a udisks permissions mask edit.

Agreed, that is a side effect. It's less of an issue for me since I can still change the permissions for the occasional file or marked files in the file manager as needed. Easier that setting 500,000 files and folders to 644/755.

I think it was MX-16 that did NOT mount NTFS and exFAT as 777 like it does now. That is just inherently wrong. I could never figure what changed, or why.