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# NTFS

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From ArchWiki

Related articles

- File systems
- NTFS-3G

From Wikipedia:

  NTFS (New Technology File System) is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft. Starting with Windows NT 3.1, it is the default file system of the Windows NT family.

The ntfs3 kernel driver provides read and write support for the file system.

There are no userspace utilities alongside the kernel driver. To format partitions or perform maintenance you still need a Windows machine or external tools like NTFS-3G.

## Tips and tricks

### Improving performance

You can enable the `prealloc` mount(8) option to decrease fragmentation in case of parallel write operations (most useful for HDD).

### Prevent creation of names not allowed by Windows

NTFS itself does not have restrictions for characters and names used, but Windows does.

ntfs3 supports `windows_names` mount(8) option. Use it to strictly maintain compatibility.

Tip: udisks has this option enabled by default.

## Known issues

### Explicit file system type required to mount

`ntfs3` may require the file system type to mount, or may otherwise mount read-only, see #File system mounts read-only.

To be able to mount the file system, specify its type as `ntfs3`. For example, using mount(8)'s `-t`/`--types` option:

    # mount -t ntfs3 /dev/sdxY /mnt

Or using fstab:

    /etc/fstab

    /dev/sdxY /mnt ntfs3 defaults 0 0

## Troubleshooting

### File system mounts read-only

The kernel from linux package has enabled `CONFIG_NTFS_FS` compatibility option [1]. It mimics the legacy driver behavior and mounts the file system read-only when `ntfs` type is used for mount.

To mount the file system read-write, use `ntfs3` type. See #Explicit file system type required to mount.

### unknown filesystem type 'ntfs'

When mounting NTFS, you can encounter an error such as:

    mount: /mnt: unknown filesystem type 'ntfs'

See #Explicit file system type required to mount.

If you want to use `ntfs3` as the default driver for `ntfs` partitions, such udev rule does the trick:

    /etc/udev/rules.d/ntfs3_by_default.rules

    SUBSYSTEM=="block", ENV{ID_FS_TYPE}=="ntfs", ENV{ID_FS_TYPE}="ntfs3"

Although, this method is not recommended and can confuse some 3rd party tools.

### Unable to mount with ntfs3 with partition marked dirty

When trying to mount a good NTFS partition (i.e. which successfully mounts with NTFS-3G and for which `ntfsfix --no-action` does not report any error), you may get the following error:

    mount: /mnt: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb1, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.
           dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount system call.

ntfs3 will not mount a partition where the volume is marked dirty without the force option. `dmesg` explicitly helps recognizing the situation, saying:

    sdb1: volume is dirty and "force" flag is not set!

You can try passing the `--clear-dirty` argument to ntfsfix(8) to clean it. [2]

## See also

- NTFS3 kernel documentation
- NTFS3 Driver FAQ – Paragon Software Group
- NTFS3 performance comparison

Category:

- File systems