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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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What file systems are you using on your devices and why? (en.wikipedia.org)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I want to learn more about file systems from the practical point of view so I know what to expect, how to approach them and what experience positive or negative you had / have.

I found this wikipedia's comparison but I want your hands-on views.

For now my mental list is

NTFS - for some reason TVs on USB love these and also Windows + Linux can read and write this
Ext4 - solid fs with journaling but Linux specific
Btrfs - some modern fs with snapshot capability, Linux specific
xfs - servers really like these as they are performant, Linux specific
FAT32 - limited but recognizable everywhere
exFAT - like FAT32 but less recognizable and less limited

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Every photocopy machine I've come across that accept USB sticks do not support exFAT, so what I would do with my USB stick is to split it into two partitions, one FAT32 and the rest exFAT.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

ext4, but the btrfs activity visible in the kernel changelog has slowed down recently after a long period of many bug fixes, so maybe I'll give it a try next time.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Xfs is solid Commenting b/c I'm disappointed no one else recommends

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Most of my drives are EXT4, but I started using BTRFS a couple years ago and will be using it on all new installs from now on. I really like being able to make snapshots and compression reduces the install size quite a bit.

[–] eager_eagle 2 points 3 months ago (4 children)

F2FS, because solid state and speed

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Btrfs on my Linux desktops and laptops, ZFS on my server, APFS on my Apple devices I guess

[–] Presi300 2 points 3 months ago

EXT4 on PC, ZFS on my server and APFS on my mac

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Depends. Slower desktop machines XFS.
Standard desktop XFS, if it has a smaller SSD, Btrfs.
Home server ext4/XFS + ZFS. Generic servers at work ext4/XFS, backup/storage servers ZFS.
Database server, experiment with ZFS with compression enabled - ratio 2:1, but encountered problems (probably a bad HBA model), standard ext4/XFS.
Hosts with virtualization, small server - XFS, big server - ZFS (technically a ZVOL).

[–] voracread 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I tried exFAT for my USB stick but car sterio cannot read it.

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[–] mayidar 2 points 3 months ago (5 children)

I use Btrfs for my root partition to be able to rollback if something goes wrong after update. XFS: in all other cases, since I hate the lost+found directory on ext4. Although I don't think there's any significant difference between ext4 and xfs in performance and reliability.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Depends on the device and the use case, mostly FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, EXT4

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