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The ntfs-3g driver is an open source, GPL licensed, third generation Linux
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NTFS driver which was implemented by the Linux-NTFS project. It provides
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full read-write access to NTFS, excluding access to encrypted files, writing
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compressed files, changing file ownerships and access rights.
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Technically it's based on and a major improvement to ntfsmount. The improvements
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include functionality, reliability, quality and performance enhancements.
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The driver currently is in BETA status: before release of this software we
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haven't experienced any driver crashes or data loss during our heavy quality
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testing, however we are aware of some minor issues which will be resolved
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in the near future. We listed all of them in a below section. Please report
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any new problem to linux-ntfs-dev@lists.sourceforge.net if it's not listed
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yet in the latest release of this software.
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The ntfs-3g driver is an open source, freely available read/write NTFS
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driver, which provides safe and fast handling of the Windows XP, Windows
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Server 2003 and Windows 2000 filesystems. Almost the full POSIX filesystem
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functionality is supported, the major exceptions are changing the file
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ownerships and the access rights.
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The purpose of the project is to develop, continuously quality test and
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support a trustable, featureful and high performance solution for hardware
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platforms and operating systems whose users need to reliably interoperate
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with NTFS. Besides this practical goal, the project also aims to explore
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the limits of the hybrid, kernel/user space filesystem driver approach,
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performance, reliability and feature richness per invested effort wise.
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The driver currently is in BETA status, which means that we weren't
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reported and haven't found any data corruption or loss during ordinary
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driver use and in our extensive quality testing before release of the
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latest version of ntfs-3g, however we are aware of some usability issues
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and driver restrictions which are all documented and planned to be resolved
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You can find news, technical answers, problem submission instructions,
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performance evaluation and other informations on the project web site:
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http://www.ntfs-3g.org
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Please see the ntfs-3g manual page for more options and examples.
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You can also make NTFS to be mounted during boot by putting the below
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line at the end of the /etc/fstab file:
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/dev/hda1 /mnt/windows ntfs-3g defaults 0 0
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Our highest priority is reliable functionality, performance comes only
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next. However acceptable performance is part of the functionality so we
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constantly keep an eye on it and consider any major performance issue to
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be a real functionality problem as well.
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Below are the averaged file creation, deletion and access performance
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numbers got by running 'bonnie++ -s0' using several filesystems (the
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benchmark used 16,000 files per directory in each sessions):
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Version 1.03 ------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create--------
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-Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete--
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files /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP
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reiserfs 16k 21459 99 +++++ +++ 17856 96 20172 98 +++++ +++ 16414 96
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jfs 16k 7015 13 +++++ +++ 5868 10 3068 14 +++++ +++ 1075 3
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ntfs-3g 16k 3021 99 14291 99 5226 99 3548 99 16149 99 5223 99
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xfs 16k 2401 17 +++++ +++ 2095 15 2301 20 +++++ +++ 347 2
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ext3 16k 1862 96 +++++ +++ +++++ +++ 1914 96 +++++ +++ 9695 98
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minix 16k 1450 97 +++++ +++ 18148 94 1694 97 +++++ +++ 4847 98
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fat32 16k 366 97 +++++ +++ 1809 97 428 97 +++++ +++ 1361 97
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paragon ntfs 16k 58 98 1259 99 245 99 55 99 +++++ +++ 832 99
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captive ntfs Always crashes early on file creations and loses files.
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This was also confirmed and fix denied by its developer.
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We estimate the ntfs-3g driver performance could be increased by several
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KNOWN ISSUES, TROUBLESHOOTING
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=============================
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Recently added or updated items are always on the top.
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Problem: Deleting files don't free disk space.
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Answer: In all investigated cases ntfs-3g accounted free space correctly.
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Below are the reasons why disk space isn't always freed:
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A) In certain cases, the files aren't deleted in real but
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moved to a 'Trash' directory. If the 'Trash' directory is
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emptied then the disk space is reclaimed.
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B) By design, Linux and Unixes free the disk space of deleted
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files permanently only if no software is using them anymore.
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C) NTFS is able to store small files and directories in fixed
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size (1 kB) MFT records (inodes). When such files are delete
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then the MFT records are marked free for reuse or undelete,
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and no space can be freed.
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Status: Not a driver problem.
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Problem: File modification times aren't always updated.
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Status: High priority work.
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Problem: VMware segfaults during startup.
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Answer: By default VMware tries to use shared writable mmap for paging
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files but it can't detect that it's not yet supported.
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Workaround: Set "mainMem.useNamedFile=FALSE" in the .vmx file. That will
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disable these paging files and VMware will work fine.
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Status: Priority, hard work.
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Problem: Writing large files sometimes can be very slow.
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Answer: The cluster allocator and the mapping pairs updater algorithms
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aren't efficient for large files on very fragmented volumes.
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Workaround: Try to defragment NTFS, it may help.
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Status: Priority work.
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Problem: Why doesn't the driver work on 64-bit and big-endian systems?
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Answer: The code is 64-bit ready and almost fully endian safe, however
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unfortunately we are unable to validate the functionality and
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keep ensuring correctness for the future due to lack of target
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Problem: "File exists" message when deleting "empty" directories:
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Answer: If 'locale' isn't set correctly then glibc can't convert
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some filenames, so they aren't visible and the directory
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indeed isn't empty. Occurs very rarely.
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Workaround: Set your 'locale' properly according to the used characters.
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Status: High priority work.
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Problem: "Operation not supported" message when creating a file:
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Answer: This is a controlled refusal of file creation which can happen
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when there are already about 100,000 files on the NTFS and the
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MFT needs to be extended in a way which isn't implemented yet.
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Workaround: Delete files then you can create new ones.
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Status: High priority work.
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Problem: "Operation not supported" message when deleting a file:
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Answer: The support for certain very-very rare directory update
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operations weren't fully tested yet, so they are not
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included in the release. This is so rare that you probably
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will never see it ;-)
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Workaround: Delete or create other files in the same directory until you
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can remove the file you originally wanted.
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Status: High priority work.
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Problem: Windows chkdsk complains about free space being marked in use.
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Answer: chkdsk sometimes optimizes the NTFS layout and later finds
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its own bugs (e.g. when index root attributes are moved from
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extent mft records to the base one). This is not a problem
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Workaround: No need, it's a chkdsk bug and it fixes itself.
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Status: Low priority work: ntfs-3g algorithms will be optimized too.
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Problem: Windows chkdsk reports the below messages (N is a number).
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Cleaning up N unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
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Cleaning up N unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
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Cleaning up N unused security descriptors.
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Answer: These messages are part of an optimization process which is
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completely independent of ntfs-3g. Nothing to worry about them.
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Status: Not a driver problem.
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Problem: Windows chkdsk may report minor inconsistency.
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Answer: The allocation size of sparse files isn't set always correctly.
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Status: Normal priority work.
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Problem: Why ntfs-3g CPU usage is always 100%?
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Answer: You have some application running which inefficiently "polls"
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for file modification events.
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Workaround: Identify the software and try to upgrade it.
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Status: Normal priority work: CPU usage will be minimized significantly
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