From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Jan 1 17:42:51 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C9FFD16A500 for ; Mon, 1 Jan 2007 17:42:51 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from chris@childeric.freeserve.co.uk) Received: from smtp-out3.blueyonder.co.uk (smtp-out3.blueyonder.co.uk [195.188.213.6]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8ABCA13C471 for ; Mon, 1 Jan 2007 17:42:51 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from chris@childeric.freeserve.co.uk) Received: from [172.23.170.146] (helo=anti-virus03-09) by smtp-out3.blueyonder.co.uk with smtp (Exim 4.52) id 1H1RBS-0005TL-JV for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Mon, 01 Jan 2007 17:42:50 +0000 Received: from [82.35.115.93] (helo=[192.168.10.60]) by asmtp-out3.blueyonder.co.uk with esmtpa (Exim 4.52) id 1H1RBS-0002Iw-4c for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Mon, 01 Jan 2007 17:42:50 +0000 Message-ID: <45994819.9030105@childeric.freeserve.co.uk> Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 17:42:49 +0000 From: Chris Whitehouse User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5 (X11/20060417) MIME-Version: 1.0 CC: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <3aa28e230612311508h6ab7ee86g8c67bbdbc238b5b7@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: file system for FreeBSD, OS X and WinXP? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 17:42:51 -0000 Eric Kjeldergaard wrote: > On 12/31/06, Keith Beattie wrote: >> >> Hello all, >> >> I recently picked up a big 700G external USB/Firewire Seagate drive with >> the >> hopes of using it to store my growing collection of music, photos, etc. >> currently spread across several different machines (all with nearly full >> discs). My hope is that I could use a single file system on this drive >> which could then be plugged into any of these machines which run FreeBSD, >> OS >> X, or WinXP. >> > > My usual recommendation for this very problem is the ext2 filesystem. As > far as I know, the drivers exist and work reasonably well for win32, > MacOSX, > linux, BSD, and several others. If taking it to machines that may not have > network to get FS drivers is an issue, you could consider several small > partitions each with an FS driver for a specific OS on it. > I chose ext2fs for the same reason. It worked fine until a power cut crashed the FreeBSD machine it was attached to and left the ext2fs partition in a big mess. I couldn't mount it until I had fsck'd it which needs sysutils/e2fsprogs. I think in the end I didn't lose data but now I don't trust it for holding data I don't want to lose. Chris