[External Hard Drive] File system supported

[tally3tally]

I am planning to buy THIS drive to use as a External hard disc drive for my PCH A110
a) Has anyone used it before
b) It supports only NTFS filesystem will this be an issue with an external HDD and NMT configuration (ie:- is it necessary to format external HDD as Ext2/3 ? )

[Gibbo]

a) not sure, but personally I wouldn't use a seagate drive if it was free (well maybe that's a little harsh). There has been a lot of bad press about them recently, I just don't think it's worth the effort given that the WD elements drives are so cheap at the moment.

b) It wont be an issue. The reason you would want ext3 is in any other format the PCH can't write to it, it can however read off of it fine. You can however install NTFS-3G using CSI, this will provide you with write support for an NTFS drive if you wish to use one.

Not sure why you say the drive will only support NTFS though? Surely you can do whatever you want with it, it's only a drive in an enclosure.

[nuke12]

(07-07-2009 02:15 PM)Gibbo Wrote:  Not sure why you say the drive will only support NTFS though? Surely you can do whatever you want with it, it's only a drive in an enclosure.

Ya, not sure why the OP feels it only supports NTFS? Does not say that on the page supplied by the OP? I've never seen one come formatted with any filesystem.

If your planning to use the unit exclusivity with an NMT, ext3 is the filesystem of choice. I would only use NTFS if there were litigating circumstances. ie - dual use required etc.

[Gibbo]

The only reason I can see is that the a drive may come with software designed for backing up data, in which case I guess it would specify NTFS...

Personally if anything ever comes with that kinda software, I usually format it and remove it, lol.

[nuke12]

(07-07-2009 03:27 PM)Gibbo Wrote:  The only reason I can see is that the a drive may come with software designed for backing up data, in which case I guess it would specify NTFS...

Personally if anything ever comes with that kinda software, I usually format it and remove it, lol.

Well, if he really wants to keep this software (if it's there), burn it off to DVD and then "have at her".

[tally3tally]

(07-07-2009 03:22 PM)nuke12 Wrote:  Ya, not sure why the OP feels it only supports NTFS? Does not say that on the page supplied by the OP? I've never seen one come formatted with any filesystem.

If your planning to use the unit exclusivity with an NMT, ext3 is the filesystem of choice. I would only use NTFS if there were litigating circumstances. ie - dual use required etc.

i say that because of the reviews found here at newegg

[Gibbo]

outlaw Wrote:Cons: Everything that I can say negative about it I knew prior to purchasing. Only has USB. The proprietary software (you don't have to install it, its plug and play, but it is there) wont let you format it as anything but NTFS, so it's read only for my mac.

So basically the software that came on the drive will only let you format to NTFS.

You could use Gparted to format to ext3 if you are only using it on the PCH, this would get rid of all the 'proprietary software crap' too (apparently the PCH scans the USB disk when it loads it, anything other than ext3 takes longer, so i've heard).

Or you could keep it as NTFS, and maybe use NTFS-3G if you need it.


lol about 'only has USB' as a con. How is that a con for an external USB drive?


Personally i'd still go with a WD elements drive for the same money.

[nuke12]

Ya, I not sure what that fellow is saying? I get the feeling that if you want to use the software, the drive has to be formatted NTFS.

Quote:Cons: Everything that I can say negative about it I knew prior to purchasing. Only has USB. The proprietary software (you don't have to install it, its plug and play, but it is there) wont let you format it as anything but NTFS, so it's read only for my mac. I'm sure its possible to get around, I just don't care enough to try. Again I have another seagate hard drive w/ same software, so I knew this beforehand.

I see no mention of what software is supplied or what it does?

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(07-07-2009 03:53 PM)Gibbo Wrote:  lol about 'only has USB' as a con. How is that a con for an external USB drive?

USB + eSATA or firewire etc interface is nice when you connect it to a computer with the same interfaces.

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(07-07-2009 03:53 PM)Gibbo Wrote:  Personally i'd still go with a WD elements drive for the same money.

I would too. I'm still running scared from Seagate's 11 generation drives and you don't know what is in that box.

[tally3tally]

one last thing
i had a problem recently with the segate internal drive
well not the drives fault, but the file systems fault i guess,
the nmt formatted it to EXT3,
i accidentally deleted a folder, and to my horror found that files once deleted could not be recovered in ext3.
So then, this gives me another reason to format the external drive as NTFS and be a little less worried about such accidents

thanks to both
Nuke12 & gibbo

[Gibbo]

(07-07-2009 03:55 PM)nuke12 Wrote:  USB + eSATA or firewire etc interface is nice when you connect it to a computer with the same interfaces.

I get that, to me though you can't really say a bad point about this USB drive is that it'd not an eSATA drive. lol

That's like reviewing a DVD player and saying you don't like it because it wont play blu rays.

I think there are ways of recovering ext3 files, well actually i'm not sure at all, it may require some technical know how.

There is a recycle bin on the ext3 drives though?


Happy to help.

[nuke12]

(07-07-2009 06:20 PM)tally3tally Wrote:  one last thing
i had a problem recently with the segate internal drive
well not the drives fault, but the file systems fault i guess,
the nmt formatted it to EXT3,
i accidentally deleted a folder, and to my horror found that files once deleted could not be recovered in ext3.
So then, this gives me another reason to format the external drive as NTFS and be a little less worried about such accidents

thanks to both
Nuke12 & gibbo

Well, me thinks you would still have the same problem using NTFS on an NMT. I could be wrong but I think the file recovery ability is a function of the OS and not the filesystem.

Maybe someone will correct me here but I'm pretty sure if you delete a file on an NMT, even with an NTFS filesystem, it's gone baby, it's gone.

BTY- your very welcome.

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(07-07-2009 06:29 PM)Gibbo Wrote:  I get that, to me though you can't really say a bad point about this USB drive is that it'd not an eSATA drive. lol

He's calling it a bad point because he wants both USB and eSATA on the unit. Many of the units do come that way. Costs more, though.

Gibbo Wrote:I think there are ways of recovering ext3 files, well actually i'm not sure at all, it may require some technical know how.

There is a recycle bin on the ext3 drives though?

I think you'll find the recycle bin is only there because the drive was connected to a Windows machine. You use Gparted and never install/connect the unit into a Windows machine, you won't have a recycle bin.