From owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Feb 14 15:43:38 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4747A1065672 for ; Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:43:38 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from olli@lurza.secnetix.de) Received: from lurza.secnetix.de (lurza.secnetix.de [IPv6:2a01:170:102f::2]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B9DA58FC1B for ; Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:43:37 +0000 (UTC) Received: from lurza.secnetix.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by lurza.secnetix.de (8.14.3/8.14.3) with ESMTP id p1EFhKY3087341; Mon, 14 Feb 2011 16:43:35 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from oliver.fromme@secnetix.de) Received: (from olli@localhost) by lurza.secnetix.de (8.14.3/8.14.3/Submit) id p1EFhKwi087340; Mon, 14 Feb 2011 16:43:20 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from olli) Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2011 16:43:20 +0100 (CET) Message-Id: <201102141543.p1EFhKwi087340@lurza.secnetix.de> From: Oliver Fromme To: freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG X-Newsgroups: list.freebsd-fs User-Agent: tin/1.8.3-20070201 ("Scotasay") (UNIX) (FreeBSD/6.4-PRERELEASE-20080904 (i386)) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.3.5 (lurza.secnetix.de [127.0.0.1]); Mon, 14 Feb 2011 16:43:36 +0100 (CET) Cc: Subject: ext2fs: ext2 vs. ext3 X-BeenThere: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Filesystems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:43:38 -0000 Hi! I've bought a small external disk (2.5", 1 TB) to use for my media player in the living room. My plan is to connect it to my FreeBSD 8 workstation in order to fill and update it. The media player is Linux-based, so I can't use UFS. Even worse, it refuses to mount ext2, while ext3 seems to work fine. So my only choice is to format the disk with ext3, because FAT has a 4 GB limit and NTFS is unsupported on FreeBSD for practical purposes. Now here's my question: Are there any problems to be expected when mounting an ext3fs partition alternately on a Linux machine and a FreeBSD machine? Both will mount it read+write (the media player writes some index or cache files to it). As far as I know, FreeBSD supports ext2 only, and even though ext3 is supposed to be backwards compatible, FreeBSD doesn't know how to handle the ext3 journal. Can this cause any problems in the long run? Would it help to run fsck.ext3 from the sysutils/e2fsprogs port every time after I have updated the file system on my FreeBSD machine? (The media player has fsck, too, but it seems to run out of memory on the 1 TB disk.) Any advice would be highly appreciated. Best regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing b. M. Handelsregister: Registergericht Muenchen, HRA 74606, Geschäftsfuehrung: secnetix Verwaltungsgesellsch. mbH, Handelsregister: Registergericht Mün- chen, HRB 125758, Geschäftsführer: Maik Bachmann, Olaf Erb, Ralf Gebhart FreeBSD-Dienstleistungen, -Produkte und mehr: http://www.secnetix.de/bsd "Documentation is like sex; when it's good, it's very, very good, and when it's bad, it's better than nothing." -- Dick Brandon