Hey everyone! I'm planning to switch to Linux once support for Windows 10 ends, and it's been quite some time since I last used Linux—about 15 years! I have a computer with a 250 Gb SSD for the system and a 3 Tb HDD primarily for storing media files. My main question is: can I format just the SSD with ext4 and keep the HDD as NTFS? Are there any significant drawbacks to this setup?
4 Answers
If you're going with Linux, I'd definitely recommend a filesystem more suited for it—NTFS isn't ideal. I typically use ext4 for my drives. If you want to share media between different systems, consider using Plex for streaming, or plan your shares carefully. I once formatted a drive in a common filesystem for dual access, and it made things easier.
NTFS can work, but you might experience slower performance than with Linux-native filesystems. If you're dual booting with Windows, remember to disable Windows' fast startup; otherwise, Linux won't let you write to the hibernated NTFS partitions. If you're using Linux exclusively, you won't have reliable recovery tools for NTFS, which could be a dealbreaker. Stick to using NTFS for basic data files only; avoid it for anything more demanding like running software or games.
Personally, I've faced a lot of headaches using NTFS, especially with permissions issues. It's easier to treat it as read-only from Linux. If you're sharing files between systems, a FAT32 partition might work if file sizes are manageable, but it's not perfect. I eventually gave up on dual booting due to these issues and made my main rig fully Linux. I now transfer files using SSH and keep a separate Windows machine for anything else.
True, NTFS can be used, but for pure Linux usage, I wouldn’t recommend it. If sharing across dual boot systems is absolutely necessary, exFAT is a better choice, but I really advise against mixing filesystems.
Sure, you can use NTFS, but I suggest formatting the HDD to another filesystem for better compatibility. I personally use btrfs, and I've had a good experience with it on Linux.
While NTFS does have its quirks, it is fully POSIX-compliant now, and the latest drivers have improved quite a bit. Those older issues you might have had stemmed from the ntfs-3g driver; if you map SIDs correctly, you'll get the expected permissions. That said, I still wouldn't opt for FAT32 since it lacks journaling and can lead to other performance issues.