Need opinions on WD Ext 250gb MY BOOK USB2.0

[mikepg]

Just got this external drive. It has google's desktop software on it and I'm not keen on google having my info. It comes FAT32 partition.

I deleted that partition and put in a NTFS format. Is this ok? I always set the block size allocation to default, is this good or not?

I am runing XP Pro on 2 machines, Server 2003 on another and Suse 10.0 and Fedora 5 on my other 2 boxes.

What format is the best for compatibilitey. It will be onthe WS OS's 99% of the time. Does XP home support NTFS?

 

[jeremy]

ntfs is supported only on nt/2k/xp/2k3/vista windows os's , ntfs is readable under linux but the write is support is experimental although ive heard since kernel 2.6.15 it got somewhat better and not all linux distros support ntfs write cuz its experimental , fat32 is universally compatible with all os's and it have perfect read/write support in linux , so overall for best compability use fat32 (but then again as you said 99% on windows so might wanna just use ntfs and of course make sure to handle the ntfs drive permissions on your other xp/2k3 pcs) but if you gonna do it better make 2 partitions as there may be problems with a partition higher then 128gb and fat32 but be aware that windows xp wont let you use fat32 for partitions higher then 32gb however you can do this with many 3rd party partition managers like acronis disk director suite/partition magic/paragon partition manager, might wanna make 1 partition ntfs and the other fat32 instead of having it all fat32 and be aware that fat32 dont support files over 4gb but ntfs does , you can get reliable ntfs write support in linux by using captive
http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive/ (free) or paragon ntfs for linux (not free) , and all nt based os's (nt/2k/xp/2k3/vista) support ntfs , and its good to leave it on default

 

[mikepg]

thanks a lot for the info bro!!