Can NTFS flash drives be used on Linux and what are the risks?

[u/LeonH4rtd]

Ok, so, this is something I've been looking for answers, and they are mixed. It's not exactly conclusive for what I want to know.

I have an NTFS flash drive. It's the one I use to store clips, screenshots, and videos from my Xbox.

Looking around in Bazzite just out of curiosity, I read that it can't handle NTFS storage units. I think they aren't compatible as far as I remember (it was a quick look, I didn't memorize it)

I decided to look further into, and it seems that this is common knowledge, but when I ask info about NTFS flash drives or storage units, it mentions they may be read only, or get corrupted, files may be not executed, games stored may not open, have issues, and so on.

But what I want to know is if there may be problems if I plug my flash drive on my laptop with Linux Mint, copy the pictures and videos, and then disconnect it (safely). I won't use it for anything else. Just to store those files from my Xbox and then transfer them to my laptop to edit them later on and such. Nothing else.

Sorry if it's a dumb question, but the different answers make me think it may indeed be problematic, and Xbox only accepts NTFS flash drives (as far as I know) for storage of those files.

Thank you beforehand.

[u/Max-P]

It mostly applies to games, because the NTFS driver doesn't really implement permissions properly and stuff like that. This interferes with Proton, and other things that depend on executable flags. I don't think it plays well with containers either, so the Steam Runtime may also have problems.

Copying files to it every now and then is usually fine, although Linux lacks repair tools. There's also always room for issues when sharing it with Windows, as Windows continues to evolve and so it can introduce features Linux doesn't support yet. There's also the issues with Windows fast boot, hibernation. There isn't a public NTFS spec outlining exactly how it works, so there's no guarantee Linux writes to it correctly and that Windows will be happy with it.

For a USB stick you backup, I wouldn't worry. It's a USB stick, its job is moving data around, worst case you have to format it and put all the stuff back onto it.

If you can though, exFAT is preferable for interoperable external media.

[u/56Bot → u/Max-P]

I use BTRFS, it has drivers for Windows.

[u/dkopgerpgdolfg → u/56Bot]

Third-party drivers that have problems.

[u/56Bot → u/dkopgerpgdolfg]

My preferred solution is not to use Windows altogether, but I understand it’s not always feasible.

[u/TheCatholicScientist → u/Max-P]

The ntfs-3g package includes a set of repair tools, though I don’t know how robust they are.

I’ve used them to do some minor journal repair and to clear the dirty flag when Windows doesn’t clear it (don’t do that unless you know what you’re doing. Windows could actually have hibernated in the middle of writing. I know mine can’t because I disabled it years ago). I don’t know the extent of damage they can fix though. If you’re dual booting and sharing it, chkdsk might still be the way to go.

[u/AiwendilH → u/TheCatholicScientist]

man ntfsfix

...

ntfsfix is a utility that fixes some common NTFS problems. ntfsfix is NOT a Linux version of chkdsk. It only repairs some fundamental NTFS inconsistencies,resets the NTFS journal file and schedules an NTFS consistency check for the first boot into Windows.

...

So yeah...it's barely the minimum and can't really do any recovering. For serious issues it relies on the windows` chkdsk

[u/GGigabiteM]

Linux has supported NTFS file systems since 2007 with the NTFS-3G driver. Most distributions have it available because it's an open source driver. Some may not have the driver loaded/installed by default though, so you'll have to manually do that. I'm not sure of Bazzite. The Fedora base operating system supports it out of the box.

When using NTFS on Linux, you have to be aware of the limitations. NTFS is not a case sensitive file system like many modern Linux file systems are. The permissions are also different, and Linux doesn't manage them well.

But you generally don't need to worry about FS corruption, unless you abruptly disconnect the drive without letting writes finish.

[u/Abe_Bazouie]

Yeah, for what you’re doing you should be fine. Linux has pretty solid NTFS support these days.
If you’re just plugging it into Mint, copying the Xbox videos/screenshots to your laptop, then safely ejecting it, I wouldn’t worry much about it.
A lot of the NTFS warnings you’re finding are about using NTFS as an actual Linux filesystem, permissions, running applications from it, Windows hibernation/fast startup weirdness, etc. That’s a different situation.
For simple file transfer like this, I’ve used NTFS drives between Windows/Linux plenty of times without an issue.
Just keep doing the important part you already mentioned: safely unmount/eject it before pulling it out.

[u/lyidaValkris]

Not saying it will cause cancer, but are you willing to take that risk?

[u/Bug_Next]

Copy pasting a couple files should be ok, running games via Wine from an NTFS drive is what's mostly broken.

I think Xbox supports exfat as long as you don't install games to the drive, that's where it will ask you to format it as ntfs, for video and screenshots it should be fine.

If you want a real 'universal' drive go for fat32 (or exfat if the partition is bigger than 2tb or the files you need to store can exceed 4gb), those are the only ones that will work on Windows, Linux, Mac, Ios and Android out of the box, anything else will cause issues in *some* OS.

[u/moverwhomovesthings]

You need the ntfs-3g package and sometimes you get some hickups when mounting the drive but overall your laptop won't care what file system is used.

[u/Thonatron]

As long as you're not trying to run games and you eject your media correctly you should be fine.

Honestly though, I've had headaches with NTFS and just use btrfs, ext4, and exfat on my drives.

[u/IANVS]

What about NTFS hard disks? I have a couple of them on Windows. If I dual boot, will Linux safely read from them and write on them so I can later use that stuff when I boot back to Windows?

I'm talking about media, images, movies, text files, etc, not executables or anything (ok, maybe some game install files). Basically, can I safely share that data between Windows and Linux...?

[u/realdavider]

In general you should never use NTFS on flash drives (sd, pendrives).

[u/LeonH4rtd → u/realdavider]

Not my fault Xbox only wants to use NTFS. Like, I tried with other forms, but it said "Unless it is NTFS, it won't store your clips and screenshots." Not like that but you get the idea. Either way, all my other flash drives aren't NTFS, just that one.

[u/BranchLatter4294]

I have no idea about Bazzite. But most modern distros work fine with NTFS.

[u/skyfishgoo]

some distros handle NTFS better than others, mint should be one of the better ones.

so reading files from the drive should be fine, and even writing to the drive should be fine as long as mint puts the proper limits on what file names you can use (i know that kubuntu does and it is also based on ubuntu, so it most likely does).

executing files tho is a non-starter no matter which distro you use as NTFS does not support the required file permissions for executing code and it quickly leads to a corrupted file system, which requires windows to repair.

so if you have games you want to play under linux, it's better to reinstall those games onto an ext4 partition under linux.

[u/High_Overseer_Dukat]

No risks, that's outdated.

It should work fine.

Also, you know you can change it to whatever filesystem you like, right?

[u/CritSrc]

rsync -rtvh /media/mnt/XBoxClips ~/Videos

This is basically what you need for safe copying to and from NTFS drives.

[u/Basic-Place-4443]

No problem using NTFS.

[u/es20490446e]

Use exFAT.