What File System Should I Use for My External Hard Drive?

I've got a 2TB external HDD formatted in NTFS, and it works perfectly for me. You could also consider exFAT since it’s compatible across systems. If you're looking for a solid Linux file system, though, ext4 or even XFS might be worth a look, especially since XFS has great performance for handling files and I/O.

I wouldn't recommend Btrfs for mechanical drives because it tends to fragment files upon changes which can really slow things down. ext4 is a solid choice. Generally, there aren't any special considerations for external drives, but you might want to adjust the mount options to disable atime for better performance. You can use a single partition without issues, but keep in mind it may show as unformatted on non-Linux systems without a partition table.

My philosophy is to keep things straightforward. I just use ext4 for all my external drives and one partition is usually enough for basic data storage.

I say stick with what you know! I mostly use ext4 for my drives for consistency, so I formatted my external drives as ext4 too. If you plan on using the drive across different systems, opt for a file system that works with those. In my case, I use a NAS to handle cross-system file sharing, so external drives don't cause me stress.

If it's just for your Linux OS, Btrfs is fine to use. But if you're planning on using it with other operating systems down the line, you might want to format it to FAT32 for better compatibility.

It depends on how you plan to use it. For example, I have an external HDD that deals with a lot of temporary files, and I opted for XFS because it handles delete operations incredibly fast. I also use NTFS sometimes for sharing files with Windows users, but for in-depth Linux use where file permissions matter, I'd avoid it. EXT4 is a solid option if you want reliability with journaling for crash recovery—it’s a versatile file system too!