Mark Hull-Richter wrote:
I am currently running a Windows XP system at home with around 100+ Mb
in use over ~400Mb of NTFS file systems. I am installing CentOS 4.4
on it when I change out the mobo/cpu/mem/video combo I just bought. I
want to convert all the file systems to (probably) Reiserfs or maybe
ext3, but I need to do them one at a time because I only have enough
transfer space to accommodate the largest one, or at least that’s my
belief. That would mean at least two copies per partition converted,
and I have six partitions to convert, from ~14Gb to over 85Gb (in one,
only – the rest are 30Gb or smaller).
1) Is there a good way to do whole fs conversions, specifically
from NTFS to reiserfs or ext3?
2) Do I even need to do this (i.e., do any of the CentOS/Linux
kernels support read AND write to NTFS)?
3) Is there, by any chance, and in-place converter from NTFS to
any Linux fs, preferably reiserfs or ext3?
Also, the last time I installed CentOS on a system (I’ve done about
six or seven so far) I don’t remember seeing reiserfs as one of the
supported fs’s for configuring during the installation process – am I
blind or is this really the case? I like reiserfs primarily because
it is really good with many small files, and I have tons of them –
around 100k files under 10k.
the only major distribution that really supports reiser natively is SuSE
10k bytes isn't really a small file, < 512 bytes is small, and where
both NTFS and Reiser's trick of hiding small files directly in the
directory entries may give some benefit.
in place format conversion is a nightmare waiting to happen. I'd
fully backup a disk before even attempting that, even assuming any such
tools exist (afaik, they don't). once its backed up, its probably
faster to restore this backup to the new format rather than attempting
any sort of conversion.
frankly, I'd build a new computer, install Linux on it, then copy the
files across the network. when done, recycle the old computer for
parts, or sell it intact as is (its probably worth more as a working
system than as parts).
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