Recommend filesystem for USB drive

[2ge]

Hi all,

I am primary MAC user, but I got also PC. I wanted to use HFS+ USB drive with Boxee Box, but it got issues: http://jira.boxee.tv/browse/BOXEE-7623

I want store 4+GB files on my USB drive.

Which FS do you recommend to use?

NTFS
FAT16 (filesize limit of 2GB)
FAT32 (filesize limit of 4GB)
HSF+, journaling disabled (Change permissions to Read and Write for everyone to make it writable over Samba)
EXT2, uid= 65534
EXT3, uid= 65534
EXT4, uid= 65534

It should be great, if I can read/write that USB drive on my Mac (primary)/PC (bonus) too.

I am not sure, if NTFS can be written on OSX. Maybe some Linux EXT is the way ? Please help.

Or I should wait for fat64 or extFAT support ?

[Gkf9]

I'm using a Wd Elements 1.5tb Fat32 Formatted attached directly to the BB, I use an old mac iBook with it and read and write files to it with no problems. Apart from the 4gb limit size, but I don't have any movie files over 4gb.

[elrock]

If you can spare an extra 25 euros for a driver (Tuxera NTFS), you might want to go with NTFS. The driver will enable your Mac to write to NTFS-formatted drives.

A fix for the HFS+ bug got deferred by Boxee and who knows when it will happen, so a Windows-compatible solution is the safest bet at this point.

[influx2k]

If you can spare an extra 25 euros for a driver (Tuxera NTFS), you might want to go with NTFS. The driver will enable your Mac to write to NTFS-formatted drives.

A fix for the HFS+ bug got deferred by Boxee and who knows when it will happen, so a Windows-compatible solution is the safest bet at this point.

There is a free version and is what Tuxera is derived from: http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/

On a side note, I'm in the same boat as you 2ge. Keep in mind too that write speeds to NTFS drives via SMB is extremely poor. I have mine set up like that now (external drive formatted NTFS connected directly to BB and shared via SMB on my wired network). As you, I'm not sure which way to go to get faster writes over my network. What about Ext3 or Ext4?

[2ge]

Guys, thanks for help. It seems NTFS is only way to go. I am not sure how it is with Ext3 or Ext4 on Mac OSX/Windows, if there are any good free drivers which support read and write. Also what about speed?

Is there some comparison about read/write speed of different FileSystems on Boxee Box?

If I got some BlueRay (40 GB, 1:30 hours) on NTFS, playback will be not choppy ?

[aaronwt]

I've used the NT File System for the last decade. I use two USB powered drives with my Boxee Box when I take it to my girlfriends. It has zero difficulty playing back my BD ISOs from those drives. It can handle even higher bitrate files when I use a USB drive than from a network drive.
But even from a Network connection BD ISOs are fine since it easily handles network bitrates higher than any BD is capable of.