Choosing File-System for Backup?

General Topics
1

This guy says exFAT is bad for backup because it can corrupt during transfer.

I am think ext4 or NTFS

2

Well… I don’t know, what “during transfer” would mean regarding the underlying file system. I also assume, you’re still on about using the same drive for backing up form Windows and Linux? If yes, I’m out, since I cannot vouch for the NTFS driver on Linux and NTFS seems the obvious choice when trying to back up from Windows.

3

Even for cross platform ext4 seems like the best option

image
image1080Ă—436 142 KB

4
  • Disadvantages of using exFAT vs NTFS/ext4 (journaling) - External Backup HDD ?

Also they have Power-loss Resilience, Self-Healing/BitRot Detect, Online Repair/Scrub , Checksum.

exFAT is truly universal, ext4 on Windows sucks, NTFS on Linux can corrupt disk

5
  1. This is dead project.
  2. Why to play with some shoestring solutions when you can achieve the same by using modern file system which does it all without any extra effort?

Unlikely to develop file system corruption after power loss.

Overall use exFAT only if you have no other option. It is very old and basic filesystem good maybe for exchanging data but definitely not for important data and heavy read/write operations. It exists not as a robust file system, but as a lowest-common-denominator workaround.

By using it you put your data at high risk of total corruption. More intensive use more chances that errors develop/accumulate as it lacks any error-correction system.

In non Windows world I would go with ZFS or BTRFS. For Windows your choice is most likely limited to whatever Microsoft provides.

6

By total corruption do you mean error can not only corrupt data being transferred but whole partition ?

7
  1. Kopia does many thing what ZFS does, so for kopia disk it’s fine ?
  2. For external disks if I regularly run chkdsk and use Robocopy to copy data then exFAT’s cons are matigated ?
8

Corruption is much more likely than with any modern filesystem. What it will result with depends only on your luck:)

9

Why exactly do you insist on using exFAT? It is the worst choice for filesystem used for kopia. There are many modern much better alternatives. Why to make life more difficult and try to reinvent a wheel?:slight_smile:

At the end it is your data and your choice.

10

exFAT and NTFS are the only 2 universal FS, NTFS on Linux and macOS have a rare problem that they can corrupt the disk

11

ext4 is natively supported on Windows via WSL. Probably BTRFS as well - do your research.

Again - your circus, your monkeys. exFAT is the worst possible choice.

1 Like