Linux – Should I use VFAT or ext3 for a 1TB external USB hard drive

ext3filesystemslinuxusbusb-flash-drive

I have a 1 TB external USB hard drive which I want to use to backup data from my home and office desktops (both running Linux).
Should I format the drive (possibly split into a few partitions) as VFAT or ext3?

I don't anticipate using the drive with Windows very often so this is not a primary concern. The main thing holding me back from just using ext3 is the problems you can have when two different users (home and work accounts) try to access each others data.

Is there any way to mount an ext3 drive with user id mapping?

Best Answer

Definitely ext3/4 over VFAT.

  • Ext3/4 are journaling file systems, which means no fragmentation issues.
  • Read/writes will be significantly faster with Ext.
  • VFAT has a 4 GB maximum file-size, which can come back to haunt you when you need to store a large file on it after you already have it loaded up with data.
Related Question