For long term storage purposes which is better, an external SSD or Thumb-drive?

[cybrsaylr]

oldfred got this,




sudo parted -l

Model: Samsung PSSD T7 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdi: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 500GB 500GB primary

[oldfred]

I would change to gpt, no reason for MBR.

Only if you need compatibility with Windows may I keep exFAT. But support in Linux is newer than support for NTFS. And new version of a driver has recently been released.
If only Linux I would convert to ext4.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT
The standard exFAT implementation is not journaled and only uses a single file allocation table and free space map.
But exFAT will store larger files than FAT32. But still should not be used for larger partitions as chkdsk may take forever.
And it does not have Linux ownership & permissions.

exFAT File-System Performance On Linux 5.9 Nov 2020
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...linux-59&num=1

Converting to or from GPT - must have good backups.
http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/mbr2gpt.html

[cybrsaylr]

Thanks oldfred,

Well this is getting more complex than anticipated.

Have an old external IDE 160 GB HDD that was simply put in an enclosure, plugged into desktop via USB port and it was good to go. Been working 15+ years well for both Windows and Linux Ubuntu for data storage using NTFS.

It this possible with this external Samsung T7 SSD if I format it to NTFS?

Got it to work on Windows 10. Plugged it in, installed the Samsung software and it opened up for transferring data between drives.

Still can't get Ubuntu 18.04 to mount or recognize this ext SSD.

[oldfred]

NTFS is not best for backup.
Windows formats do not support Linux ownership & permissions.
So you could backup your data, but if you restore data, you have to reset ownership & permissions.
But you cannot backup any system folder as ownership & permissions vary.

Is the Samsung Software just for Windows encryption? And then unique to this drive?

[cybrsaylr]

The Samsung Software is just for Windows or Mac encryption.
No Linux software option available.
Didn't think this mattered since Ubuntu offers its own encryption with ext4 I believe.

Intended this SSD to be used for long term data storage not backup.

[cybrsaylr]

Solved!
Found this very helpful Google link.
Did it and it worked like a charm opening up the PSSD T7.

How to Mount an exFAT Drive on Ubuntu Linux

How to Mount exFAT Drive on Ubuntu Linux
To be able to mount exFAT filesystem on Ubuntu you’ll need to install the free FUSE exFAT module and tools which provide a full-featured exFAT file system implementation for Unix-like systems.

Before installing the packages make sure the Universe repository is enabled on your system. Open your terminal either by using the Ctrl+Alt+T keyboard shortcut or by clicking on the terminal icon and type:
sudo add-apt-repository universe
Once the repository is enabled update the packages index and install the exfat-fuse and exfat-utils packages using the following commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install exfat-fuse exfat-utils
That’s it! You can now open your file manager and click on the USB disk to mount it.