exFAT or NTFS better for large usb drive?

[ckp]

which file format is better with 4.2 RetroPie for connecting a large usb drive which will have some files larger than 4GB (so FAT32 won't work)?
can retropie 4.2 read NTFS and exFAT out of box?
do you still need to install exFAT driver with a command like this:
sudo apt-get install exfat-fuse

thanks.

[ckp]

Thank you. I stated that some of my files will be larger than 4GB, so not fat32.
So, I plan to put some movie files there and possibly symlink some of the larger game roms like ps1.
So, as far as I can tell my options are to format the usb drive as exFAT or NTFS, but I don't know if Retropie will have any issues with either for what I will be doing. And I don't know if I need to install anything for NTFS or exFAT.

[BuZz]

@ckp if usbromservice is enabled, both should work out of the box.

[dankcushions]

@BuZz said in exFAT or NTFS better for large usb drive?:

@ckp if usbromservice is enabled, both should work out of the box.

oh cool! maybe i should update https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Running-ROMs-from-a-USB-drive as it specifies FAT32.

[pjft]

@ckp out of curiosity, what files do you have that take up more than 4gb? I thought the largest storage that the emulated systems used was the CD?

[obsidianspider]

@pjft I'm guessing movies. Those are easily over 4GB, especially if they are HD.

[ckp]

@BuZz , thanks! that's what i was hoping for! so i will format with exFAT then, so all my computers (Mac and Windows) and Retropie can use it.

[Southpaw018]

@pjft @obsidianspider It's not just the single file size limit. FAT32 has a hard limit of 65,517 files, and if you're using long filenames (which everyone is these days), each file can take up to 13 of those 65k entries, depending on name length. FAT32 is actually unable to accommodate several of the GoodTools sets because they completely exhaust the per-directory size limit.

[ckp]

just an FYI for anyone, i've been using exFAT on a 64GB usb key and very large files. no issues when playing back hd movies.

[red2blue]

im trying to auto mount my newly "exfat" formatted drive..

this is whats in my fstab

UUID=1C79-EID5 /home/pi/RetroPie exfat nofail,user,uid=pi,gid=pi 0 2

am i doing anything wrong here?? its not mounting.

[AndersHP]

I'm running games off USB, but a certain script for emulator specific launching images mentioned here needs symbolic links to work, which rules out FAT.

It seems NTFS would be better, but I cannot write to this disk from Mac, anyone got an idea for a workaround that would suit all needs?

[Clyde]

@andershp Can the Mac write to any decent Linux file system? Then that may be the best solution, if there are no other reasons for using a Windows file system.

[cyperghost]

@andershp symbolic links defnitily works on NTFS but the solution @Clyde offers seems the best usecase. But I think for Mac there are programs to access NTFS devices, too. The system was introduced the early 90s

[Clyde]

Another thought: With the package hfsplusinstalled, Retropie should be able to read HFS(+) formatted media, as long as their journalling is turned off as far as I remember. But my experiences with that are from many years ago.

[AndersHP]

@clyde when trying to format my USB there's no option to use Linux file system, only OSX, FAT or exFAT.

[Clyde]

@andershp I looked around a bit and there are some solutions for read/write NTFS and ext3 or ext4 for MacOS, but some are quite old and some are commercial. I fear that you'll have to look for yourself if one of them suits your needs.

As for hfsplus, since Apple decided not to tell their users the exact file system "OSX" stands for (HFS+ with or without CoreStorage? APFS? …?), you may have to do a little research in that matter. If it's HFS+, see here about mounting it on Linux, and here about problems with CoreStorage. As mentioned before, you also may have to disable journaling. To avoid all that you could try to format the drive with HFS+. However, the question remains if hfsplus is even a valid option for Retropie, even though the underlying Linux supports it.

sigh It could be so easy if Windows and MacOS would support other OS' files systems like Linux does … (Sorry for the rant, but threads like these remind me how crippled those systems are in that regard, even in today's age of interoperability.)

[madmodder123]

@andershp You can format your USB HDD using the command line on RetroPie.

1. Connect a USB Keyboard to your Pi
2. Press F4 to drop to the command line
3. https://devtidbits.com/2013/03/21/using-usb-external-hard-disk-flash-drives-with-to-your-raspberry-pi/ This link has the commands to find your drive and format it to whatever format you want.

[nex86]

@Chien-Dinh it says drive is too big.