NTFS or ext4 for new internal HDD on Ubuntu Home Server for Plex

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

I bought a new 2 TB hard drive for my Home Server that is running Ubuntu Server 18.04, and I am going to use it solely as a media drive (movies, photos, music) and install Plex to share it.

I currently have Plex server running in my Windows machine, where I have all my movies, that I am sharing with Plex. My plan is to move all my movies to the new hard drive on the Ubuntu machine, and run Plex on the Ubuntu Machine.

I know that if I format the drive to ext4, Plex would work fine (after of course setting the right permissions for the plex use), but I also want to transfer files from my Windows machine to the Ubuntu server through the network (with Samba I suppose).

What is the best solution for this situation? Would the samba service work well with the ext4 format, and Plex server? Is it better to format the disk as NTFS, as I am not planning to use these files much within my Ubuntu server. I know both file systems will mostly work for what I want, but if someone has a similar experience I would love to hear some feedback.

2

Never use NTFS on Linux except for compatibility reasons (a USB must be moved back & forth)

Linux native file system is EXT4.

Would you use ext4 on Windows?
Same logic applies :slight_smile:

If you’re using Samba, the underlying filesystem doesn’t matter. There’s another vote for being native on Linux - ext4

This is either 'All in -or- All out". Straddling the line will cause heartburn. The skills must be learned & mastered.

3

Thank you very much for your reply. My only reason for using NTFS instead of ext4, was concerns about compatibility issues with the movies that I have on windows when I transfer them to ext4. I guess Samba solves this issue (I have never used it before, so this is the source of my confusion).

So when I transfer my movies through the network from Windows to the ext4 drive (that I will have given the user plex the permissions to read/write), there won’t be any issues with Plex? (I guess samba will make sure to give the correct permissions to the new files, in order for Plex to be able read them).

4

samba isn’t what’s solving the problem.

Samba is nothing more than the CIFS/SMB server software on Linux machines. It emulates / originates the same SMB/CIFS protocol used by Windows in Windows file sharing.

You still need to configure samba (which isn’t the easiest thing to do in Linux).

Windows is a single-user system.
Linux is multi-user.

On Linux,
You have a username (your account)
Plex has its username (the ‘plex’ account)
The system has its accounts (root, sys, and several others)

Learning & mastering the basics of how Linux permissions work is the key to success.

Learn permissions first
Apply what you’ve learned to the Samba configuration.
Success will happen.

5

Thanks again for the useful info. Maybe I will first try to share a folder in Ubuntu to my Windows machine with samba to get my hands dirty with the samba configuration, and understand better how it works, and maybe try to use Plex on that folder for some random movies to see how it works, before applying it to my new hard drive.

Anyways, love learning all this technical stuff, so thank you for your time and replies :smiley:

6

Just remember the “defacto” rule:

  1. If a drive is to be a permanent part of a system (Linux, Windows, or Mac), format the drive to exist natively
  2. If the drive is portable, format to whichever file system is most portable between those involved.

In this case, I believe the #1 applies – because it’s internal – it will be ext4
If it were in an enclosure you moved back & forth – #2 would apply and be NTFS

7

Yes that is my plan, to have the disk permanently on the Ubuntu system, as a media storage for my other machines to access through the network and have Plex to share my movies. So ext4 is the way to go now.

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