In message <a6d5e56955.rcomp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
A Rawnsley <rcomp@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In message <64f7896955.baz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Barry Smith <baz@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Moving from DVDs to (32GB) SD cards for some backups (as well as using
an NAS) I'm a little confused about formats.
Can RO 5.22 read/write NTFS format, or only FAT32 ?
From what I've read, NTFS is better as it has "recoverability" at the
expense of a chunk of the memory, but I'd like to be able to read and
write on both Windows and RISC OS.
If you wish to use a card on Windows and RISC OS, you'll need to stick to
FAT32.
Fortunately almost every 32Gb and smaller SD card comes FAT32
formatted "out of the box".
Note that 64Gb+ cards often come with exFAT
format (which is quite sparsely supported outside of Win).
NTFS is a funny one. Whilst there is NTFS support in other OSs (eg.
Linux) it has tended to be considered somewhat "beta". RISC OS is simple
- it doesn't handle NTFS. Basically NTFS is, I believe, a more closed
format and contains a number of concepts (eg. permissions) which aren't an
easy fit to RISC OS. Basically, NTFS tends towards a bumpier ride
generally, so you wouldn't choose it as a format for portablility.
However, I do agree that it should be a more "robust" format.
The one way you *can* do NTFS is if the drive is plugged into a Windows
machine and shared over the network. You should then be able to access it
via LanMan98 or Omni/LanManFS. One upside of this approach is that the
filetype mechanisms used by LanMan98 (and also LanManFS now, I think),
using ,xxx notation, will be recognised by LM98 *and* HostFS/VirtualAcorn.
This is handy if your reason for using non-filecore disc format is that
you want your RISC OS files to be accessible on non-ARM hardware - you can
almost certainly run VA on said hardware, or RPCemu (not tested in this
context) and easily open your files.
Note that since you mention NAS in your email, the previous paragraph
holds just as true for that.
