This has been in the back of my mind lately as I think about bouncing between OSes. Typically various Linux distros seem to be able to recognize just about any filesystem, but the same definitely can’t be said of Windows, and I suspect MacOS as well.

I’m mainly thinking about whatever would allow you to plug a drive into a computer or smartphone (more of an edge case here tbh, but it’d be a nice bonus) and it be recognized without issue.

  • M500@lemmy.mlEnglish
    15·
    7 months ago

    Exfat is your answer. It’s not the best file system, but it’s recognized by almost everything.

    This is a problem I deal with as I have Linux for personal, windows for work, and my wife’s personal is Mac.

    Just don’t keep any important files on exfat as it can more easily become corrupt.

    The longer answer is setting up a network attached storage the mounting the drives over the smb protocol.

    That way you can use any file system you want.

    • ALostInquirer@lemm.eeOP
      1·
      7 months ago

      The longer answer is setting up a network attached storage the mounting the drives over the smb protocol.

      That way you can use any file system you want.

      The more I thought about it, something like this did come to mind, but I wasn’t sure how it might work. Think you gave me some key words to look into to help pin it down, so thanks!

      • M500@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        7 months ago

        If you have any particular questions please let e know. I’ve been doing this for years and can basically do it from memory at this point.

        I’m happy to help.

  • Extras@lemmy.today
    7·
    7 months ago

    For native support I guess the best non-journaling filesystem would be exfat if you’re planning on storing files that are +4gb in size which will work on any up to date operating systems (not 100% sure about iOS) but you might run into trouble with older operating systems. As for journaling no clue but I wager NTFS but that would leave out mobile operating systems and maybe macos but not 100% on this one. I know that it works with Linux and windows since that’s the one I used to use but I since moved away to ext4 after fully committing to the Linux style.

    Edit: looks like iOS supports exfat. Macos only supports reading NTFS but not writing so whomp whomp

  • Julian@lemm.eeEnglish
    6·
    7 months ago

    Fat 32 should be recognized by just about everything. The tradeoff ofc is that it’s very limited.

  • Pantherina@feddit.de
    2·
    7 months ago

    I dont know about MacOS really, I can imagine that can just use USBSticks (fat32 or oold Fat16) and their own filesystem, as they simply dont care.