Bugzilla – Bug 12675
TinySC support for NTFS formatted drives
Last modified: 2009-11-19 09:41:45 UTC
NTFS is a common file system in use mainly amongst Windows users. Many think it is the only option sensible for larger drives, such as those drives used for storing a large music library. Rcently it has become more common for off-the-shelf portable drives to be supplied pre formatted as NTFS (i.e Seagate Freeagent Go portable drives). Currently TinySC does not currently support NTFS formatted drives. Increasingly this appears as a likely cause of customer confusion and ongoing support problems.
This is still an enhancement.
I can't see how it couldn't be a pre-requisite for TinySC release but I guess it's not up to me to change the bug's severity.
The reason I'm wary of NTFS is the greater risk of complete disk corruption. Even Windows doesn't let you format a portable drive as NTFS without making a dangerous setting change.
USB drives like the Seagate Freeagent Go portable drives are shipped formatted with NTFS.
@Andy What "dangerous setting" would that be? I just went to format a 250 GB portable drive on Vista and NTFS was the default. My other choice is exFAT which I know nothing about. FAT32 isn't even offered as an option. I really think there is going to be a demand for this when Fab is released. Most Windows users are probably already backing up to NTFS formatted drives and might want to use those with TinySC without changing the format. You've got 2 testers ready and waiting if you decide to add the NTFS support.
I don't know what Vista does, but in XP you have to enable write-caching on removable drives in order to get NTFS in the format list. http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2004/04/05/108205.aspx
Andy, this is true for "removable" drives, meaning memory cards in readers mainly, but also Zip, Jaz and any other large capacity "flaoppy" replacement as well as many CD-R/DVD-R drives with the right driver layer installed. This does not include the majority of USB attached hard drives. Windows Explorer has a seperate icon for a removable drive, it looks kind of like a Zip or Jaz drive, and when you right click on them there is an "Eject" option. A USB external drive that shows as a regular hard drive does not have an eject, you need to "Safely Remove" the drvice before actually unplugging it. These are treated exactly the same as a fixed disk in windows and the default format for anything over 32GB is NTFS. exFAT is another option, but new in Vista. In XP and Win2K you will *only* have the NTFS option for these drives. Hope this clears it up :)
I've just stuck one of my now unused Maxtor Touch USB II drives back in my XP Pro machine. Windows gave me no choice of file system to format it with. All I was presented with was NTFS. Admittedly the drive was already formatted as NTFS (if that makes a difference). I (and two friends of mine who use SlimDevices gear but do not partake in the forums) want a hardware SC that will use NTFS drives. Out of a straw poll of real-work Squeezebox users (not forum or Linux geeks) this is 100%. :-)
Understood, guys, but this isn't going to make it to the initial launch of the product.
One issue with adding NTFS support is that we'd almost certainly want to use the commercially-licensed driver that has better performance. http://www.tuxera.com/products/tuxera-ntfs-commercial/ http://www.tuxera.com/products/tuxera-ntfs-commercial/performance/ I think we could probably add the GPL version of ntfs-3g in the meantime for testing. We are planning to add popup warning messages and an eject icon so the issue of safety is worrying me less these days.
I would very much like to use NTFS to be able to have partitions larger than the FAT32 volume/partition limitation of 32gb. My collection of 300 cds is approx 100gb is size. FAT32 has a 32gb partition limitation. So we would have to create multiple partitions on the drive, many people dont have a clue on how to do this. With WIN 7 not etc its time to get with todays technology and OS architecture and support NTFS. Thanks Alex I am ok with it not being on launch day and hope it can come out in 30-60 days after launch via firmware etc.. We can convert FAT32 to NTFS. Thanks again for listening! Alex
Just discovered this NTFS issue. I own a squeezebox classic and I am very interested in the Touch. But ... I often have to deal with files larger than 4GB. (big files coming from professional applications, or simply DVD iso images for movies) I won't keep a specific obsolete FAT32 drive just for the Touch. Not supporting NTFS is a showstopper for me. (No I won't use linux formats, I have to deal too often with XP x86 and Seven x64) Please, we are in 2009, FAT32 and 4GB limitation is totally obsolete ...
NTFS should be there from the get-go. You don't want to walk a lot of folks through copying their music to another drive, reformating, and then restoring the music. Do you? It may not be the official version of NTFS but that could be changed with an update and wouldn't require reformating drives. JMHO, George
I was about to reformat my 1tb USB backup drive to Fat32 so I could try out TinySC and as I result I've discovered: 1) It is impossible to format large USB drives to Fat32 using Windows XP Pro or Windows 7 (which I assume means impossible with Vista too) without downloading additional third party software). 2) The Fat32 file system is not capable of holding files larger than 4gb 3) The Fat32 file system is wasteful on disk space 4) Increasingly modern USB drives are being shipped formatted as NTFS 4) TinySC is not slated to support NTFS till 8.0.1 None of the reasons given above for not supporting NTFS at launch add up when compared to the pain this will cause Touch buyers and Logitech support. NTFS support is not an enhancement, it's a necessity.
And now a public Touch forum thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?p=482277
It will be interesting to find out how many customers call in to Logitech when they can't use their current external USB hard drives. I suspect that most people using Windows XP are using NTFS external volumes, seeing as you can't even format such drives as FAT32 without third party software. This has been the case for over 8 years. FAT32 is fine for small USB flash drives and for Windows 95 users. Is it expected that most customers fall into those two camps? Not something I would bet on. BTW, is there an enhancement request to support HFS+? Mac users would very much appreciate that.
fantastic this has been fixed, very important imo. for what versions tho, and i'm curious as to just some basics of how it was fixed, what method/tools does it use?