My new music server - what format please (Mac to PC)??

[DuxServit]

On a completely different line of thinking, perhaps instead of getting the Project streamer box you could get a new MacMini + Roon server. One advantage is that you could still use the MacMini for other applications.

Just sayin’...

 

[Saffy]

Thanks, already have the Pro-ject box so will stick with that.

 

[somebodyelse]

The problem with people saying 'linux supports format X' is that it's they're all optional. A particular supplier or distro may or may not include them either by default or as an option. They may even add support for a filesystem that isn't supported upstream, as Samsung and possibly others did with the exFAT driver in their Android devices. Unfortunately this doesn't help with which ones Pro-ject included with their Volumio version - sorry. Fat32 is almost certain to work. NTFS and exFAT may or may not work. It won't hurt to try them.

 

[mansr]

The problem with people saying 'linux supports format X' is that it's they're all optional. A particular supplier or distro may or may not include them either by default or as an option. They may even add support for a filesystem that isn't supported upstream, as Samsung and possibly others did with the exFAT driver in their Android devices. Unfortunately this doesn't help with which ones Pro-ject included with their Volumio version - sorry. Fat32 is almost certain to work. NTFS and exFAT may or may not work. It won't hurt to try them.

Widely used filesystems with long-time support in official Linux releases, such as FAT32, are pretty much guaranteed to work. Ext4 and its predecessors can also be presumed to work. For other filesystems, the odds of them working on a particular system is much higher if they are officially supported in Linux as then the vendor only has to enable it. At the bottom of the list are filesystems requiring patches. Supporting them requires effort by the vendor, and the quality may be lacking (they're missing upstream for a reason).

 

[audio_tony]

so my preference is NTFS. As exFat is susceptible to power outages

Any filesystem can be corrupted by power outages.

Corruption is usually caused by cached data waiting to be written to disk as the power fails - or - a disk write occurring during power failure.

A good way to protect against this (if only reading music files) is to mount the disk read only (if your streamer offers such an option) although corruption can still occur if a power surge causes the disk to perform a random write (unusual).

 

[mansr]

Any filesystem can be corrupted by power outages.

Corruption is usually caused by cached data waiting to be written to disk as the power fails - or - a disk write occurring during power failure.

A good way to protect against this (if only reading music files) is to mount the disk read only (if your streamer offers such an option) although corruption can still occur if a power surge causes the disk to perform a random write (unusual).

A power outage can of course always result in losing any data not yet committed to non-volatile storage. Where filesystems differ is that some ensure that the on-disk data is always consistent even if a write is interrupted. This means that in the event of a power loss, everything successfully written is guaranteed to be intact. Examples of such filesystems are ext4, XFS, and NTFS. With other filesystems, power loss can result in an inconsistent state rendering existing files inaccessible. FAT, exFAT, and ext2 all belong to this category.

 

[audio_tony]

A power outage can of course always result in losing any data not yet committed to non-volatile storage. Where filesystems differ is that some ensure that the on-disk data is always consistent even if a write is interrupted. This means that in the event of a power loss, everything successfully written is guaranteed to be intact. Examples of such filesystems are ext4, XFS, and NTFS. With other filesystems, power loss can result in an inconsistent state rendering existing files inaccessible. FAT, exFAT, and ext2 all belong to this category.

Not quite.

If power is removed during a write, then no filesystem can ensure the data is written successfully as.... well... the power has now gone....

This is why in enterprise environments, we have RAID controller cards with battery backed RAM.

Data is stored in RAM and written to disk, then cleared from RAM on a successful write.

If there is a power cut (either during a write or not) - the (uncommitted) data is retained in RAM (powered by the battery) and then written to disk once power is restored.

EDIT: Re-read your post (about 5x) and you said: "This means that in the event of a power loss, everything successfully written is guaranteed to be intact." - this of course assumes that any writes took place before the power failed. But no filesystem can protect against write failure / corruption when the power fails during a write procedure.

 

[mansr]

Not quite.

If power is removed during a write, then no filesystem can ensure the data is written successfully as.... well... the power has now gone....

This is why in enterprise environments, we have RAID controller cards with battery backed RAM.

Data is stored in RAM and written to disk, then cleared from RAM on a successful write.

If there is a power cut (either during a write or not) - the (uncommitted) data is retained in RAM (powered by the battery) and then written to disk once power is restored.

EDIT: Re-read your post (about 5x) and you said: "This means that in the event of a power loss, everything successfully written is guaranteed to be intact." - this of course assumes that any writes took place before the power failed. But no filesystem can protect against write failure / corruption when the power fails during a write procedure.

Let me try again. Journaling filesystems guarantee consistency. On power failure, everything written prior to some time shortly before said failure will be intact while everything from the last few seconds is lost. (The battery-backed RAM you mention shortens this time.) It is also impossible to end up with garbled data. Non-journaling filesystems can't guarantee that files written a week ago won't be corrupted by a power failure during a write to a different file today. The actual data will still be there, of course, but the data structures indicating which blocks belong to which files can be damaged.

Is that clearer?

 

[audio_tony]

Is that clearer?

Now that you mention the magic word "journalling" yes. (Long time Linux user here - long time in 3rd line IT too)

 

[Saffy]

Hi all, and thank you. I'm going with NTFS. Its preferred by Proj-ject (Linux). No file size limitation (FAT32), files dont get corrupted from a power outage (exFAT). Sorry Mac.