Re: [FRIAM] Backup solutions (was "stupidest question....")

[Bill Eldridge]

Raymond Parks wrote: Russell Standish wrote: One problem with this notion, is that Linux does not support write access to NTFS (used for WindowsXP), except as a "take-you-life-into-your-own-hands-you-have-been-warned" option. Restoration of data can therefore be difficult. This is not Linux's fault - MS does not publish the details of NTFS, so is free to change things under to hood, with potentially disasterous consequence for anyone trying to write to NTFS without going through the MS software stack. Actually, a colleague once talked to the writer of the NTFS experimental driver for Linux via email. As a filesystem, NTFS is relatively simple, but in implementation it is inherently unstable. Errors are unavoidable. That is why Windows takes so long to shutdown - it is going through the filesystem correcting the errors that have accumulated during a session. The Linux driver writer didn't have the time and energy to find out all the error cases and develop the corrections. While I simply don't know with accuracy, this sounds like FUD on the part of Linux fans. NTFS is used on millions of mission critical machines, not to sound like a marketing message, and if you got errors every time there was a quick boot/power outage (i.e. these accumulated errors left over and not burned to disk), I can't imagine anyone using NTFS or even Windows. Also, I can't imagine NTFS being around for 11 years with various upgrades and having this error situation persist.

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