From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Aug 22 20:07:49 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4DDDE106567F for ; Fri, 22 Aug 2008 20:07:49 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx02.qsc.de (mx02.qsc.de [213.148.130.14]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0E91D8FC1B for ; Fri, 22 Aug 2008 20:07:49 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from r55.edvax.de (port-92-195-213-79.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.213.79]) by mx02.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id C60C916C0280; Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:05:03 +0200 (CEST) Received: from r55.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r55.edvax.de (8.14.2/8.14.2) with SMTP id m7MK53ah002348; Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:05:03 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:05:03 +0200 From: Polytropon To: "Andrew Gould" Message-Id: <20080822220503.29de18ee.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: References: Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 2.4.7 (GTK+ 2.12.1; i386-portbld-freebsd7.0) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: FreeBSD Questions Mailing List Subject: Re: OT: most "universal" file system for 1TB external USB2 hard drive X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Polytropon List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 20:07:49 -0000 On Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:13:29 -0500, "Andrew Gould" wrote: > I couldn't help myself. During lunch, I found a 3.5" 1TB SATA internal HD > **and** a USB2 HD enclosure for SATA drives on sale at large % discounts. > It was more than I could resist. > > The operating systems in my home include FreeBSD, NetBSD, Mac OS X and > Windows XP Pro. If I want all of these systems to be able to read and write > to the drive, what file system should I use? I know fat32 is pretty > universal, but is it advisable? Well, the filesystem with the most interchange quality isn't a real file system - it's tar. Inside the UNIX world, it's very welcome if you need to exchange data from, let's say, Sun, SGI and x86 UNIX systems using a physical device. Because "Windows" is intendedly not able to access file systems that are not made by MICROS~1, UFS (which you could access from Mac OS X as well as from the BSDs) would be a good choice, but it can't be chose due to your requirements in this setting. Something like an MS-DOS filesystem would be accessible from all the systems you mentioned, but it doesn't bring you much comfort (for example no user management, no access rights). -- Polytropon >From Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...