# Why isn't there a good portable filesystem?



## thorbsd (Nov 1, 2012)

Perhaps there is something that is out there that I'm just unaware of, but I'm surprised that there doesn't seem to be a good cross-platform filesystem that can be used for backup/portable devices. There's exFAT now from MS, and though you can use it on Windows and OSX, there's probably no chance it'll end up on Linux/*BSD because of patents. (I know there's a guy working on it).

I remember when I first moved over to FreeBSD I spent a lot of time messing around trying to get a system set up with access to my NTFS drives. Eventually I just gave up and converted everything to UFS and all my issues went away. Unfortunately I moved away for school, put the desktop in storage, and I'm now on a laptop that isn't very well supported by FreeBSD. Once again I'm forced into the Windows world when I'm on the go and I keep finding myself in a situation where I need to use NTFS on my portable drives and FreeBSD. Everything works well enough, but I'm just surprised that someone in the free software world hasn't had a similar problem and come up with a modern filesystem that works well with portable devices that every OS manufacturer wants to support.


----------



## phoenix (Nov 1, 2012)

UDF was supposed to become "the one true portable filesystem to rule them all".  It's in the name, after all:  Universal Disk Format.  

Not sure what the write support for UDF is like in FreeBSD, but read support is definitely there.


----------



## NewGuy (Nov 1, 2012)

I suppose the problem there is that most commercial OS vendors don't want you to be cross-platform, they want you to use their platform exclusively. There are file systems which will work across most open source operating systems, but commercial vendors aren't going to adapt them. 

Still, the ext2 file system is pretty good and can work with Linux and FreeBSD and I think there is an add-on support package for Windows. Not sure if ext2 can be made to work on OS X, but I imagine one could access ext2 from OS X using FUSE. In short, I think ext2 is probably your best bet for accessing your data anywhere, just make sure if you're using Windows you can install the add-on file system package.


----------



## SirDice (Nov 2, 2012)

Oddly enough, the most portable filesystem seems to be Microsoft's FAT. It has it's limitations, like a 4GB filesize limit. Although you can use it without issues if you create a commercial application (using BSD licensed stuff) and use FAT I'm quite sure Microsoft will come around, claim IP on FAT and force you to pay. 

I think I've said it before, we really need a portable, BSD licensed, filesystem. One without any IP.


----------



## Crivens (Nov 2, 2012)

SirDice said:
			
		

> Oddly enough, the most portable filesystem seems to be Microsoft's FAT. It has it's limitations, like a 4GB filesize limit. Although you can use it without issues if you create a commercial application (using BSD licensed stuff) and use FAT I'm quite sure Microsoft will come around, claim IP on FAT and force you to pay.
> 
> I think I've said it before, we really need a portable, BSD licensed, filesystem. One without any IP.



Given the current patent situation, I would even wager that they would come after you in any case where your FS gains enough foothold to show on the FAT licencing invoices.

There are several BSD licenced file systems around, but nobody seems to want them. UFS1/FFS would easily serve as replacements for FAT, would they not?


----------



## SirDice (Nov 2, 2012)

Crivens said:
			
		

> Given the current patent situation, I would even wager that they would come after you in any case where your FS gains enough foothold to show on the FAT licencing invoices.


I'm afraid you may be right about that. They certainly have the muscle for it.



> There are several BSD licenced file systems around, but nobody seems to want them. UFS1/FFS would easily serve as replacements for FAT, would they not?


Only if you rip out a few things, like user and group ownership. You don't really want those as they're not functional when you move data around from for example your camera and your tablet. And they can cause issues if you use different accounts on different machines.


----------



## wblock@ (Nov 2, 2012)

SirDice said:
			
		

> I think I've said it before, we really need a portable, BSD licensed, filesystem. One without any IP.



So... UFS?  Seriously, I got tired of the limitations and just decided to use UFS on "portable" drives.  There are UFS filesystem implementations on Windows... which I have not been sufficiently desperate to try.  Linux surely has them too.

It's either that or ext2, but I've never seen any reason ext2 is superior to UFS, and it's going to be GPL.


----------



## SirDice (Nov 2, 2012)

wblock@ said:
			
		

> There are UFS filesystem implementations on Windows... which I have not been sufficiently desperate to try.


I tried some, they don't work too good. And you need to pay for a lot of them


----------



## fluca1978 (Nov 2, 2012)

UFS means Unix File System, not universal. And yes, FAT is today the most protable file system, at least it is one that pretty much any embedded device has an implementation for. 
Since a lot of these systems are BSD/Linux based, I would not be surprised to be able to mount also an extN/ufs media, but probably some guy has hardcode a command like

```
mount -t vfat ...
```
somewhere 

By the way, the FAT licensing is a concrete risk, and moreover FAT has so much limitations (e.g., file and partition size) that is not an option for many enterprise applications (not to mention it is not an enterprise file system).


----------



## bbzz (Nov 2, 2012)

fluca1978 said:
			
		

> UFS means Unix File System, not universal.



U*DF*, not U*FS*.


----------

