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[–]PixelBrush6584 14 points15 points  (2 children)

I‘d recommend EXT4 for your use-case. As for the 5% it reserves for root, you can disable that. I made a blogpost about it too lol https://pixelbrush.neocities.org/entries/2025/05/30.html

TL;DR:

sudo tune2fs -m 0 /dev/partition

(Replace /dev/partition with the relevant ext4 partition, you can find it via lsblk)

[–]Independent-Coat-685[S] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I will try it

[–]Independent-Coat-685[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Update it worked 

[–]Always_Hopeful_ 1 point2 points  (1 child)

From your description, it seems likely you have one 2T file system. If so, and you are not done installing or some day need to do it over, I'd suggest a smaller file system for the OS mounted at / and another filesystem mounted as /home for your data. You can safely tune the data file system to not reserve space while retaining the 5% on the OS file system.

When there is no free space in the root file system, you may find you can't boot at all and end up in emergency mode. Recovery is possible but complex. It is _much_ easier to recover from an almost completely full file system than one with 0 inodes or 0 space.

My Ubuntu install is using about 33 Gb for the OS file system out of the 120 Gb allocated.

[–]Independent-Coat-685[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I installed Fedora on my NVME drive then bought HDD separately and installed it in my PC

[–]candy49997 6 points7 points  (4 children)

FAT32 is used mostly for solid state drives

Uh, no. SSDs can use any filesystem HDDs can. And it's also not really outdated? It's still commonly in use, but only for applications where maximal compatiblity across devices is required. E.g. a USB flash drive might be FAT32. Your EFI bootloader partition is definitely FAT32, because that's guaranteed to be supported by all UEFI motherboards.

Also, pretty much all filesystems will take some overhead. Linux filesystems take it for Unix features like permissions. ext4 is actually lean, because it's a comparatively simpler filesystem than the other ones you listed.

[–]Decent-Trifle-9253 3 points4 points  (2 children)

Fat 32 has 4GiB max file size. How it isn't outdated. Also it doesn't have modern FS capabilities like data integrity. Fat32 have use cases, but not as FS for data storage.

[–]candy49997 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I just explained how it isn't outdated? Its simplicity is the reason why it's still used. I also never said you should use it for mass storage.

[–]Magus7091 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You're talking from two different standpoints. For general usage, like this thread, it's outdated. It does have it's specific use cases, which you mentioned, which means it's not obsolete, like it's older sibling, FAT16. But obsolete and outdated aren't the same thing. As a general purpose file system, FAT32 is outdated, though not obsolete.

[–]shawnfromnh1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

also fat32 is allowed 4 32gb partitions if used for the entire drive so ntfs is likely what they meant but forgot. Ext4 is the only way to go for reliability.

[–]RevolutionaryHigh 8 points9 points  (0 children)

based on your post, ext4 would be the best option for you. Information about 5% quota is false, in worst case you can disable it any time

[–]tuxbass 3 points4 points  (0 children)

ext4 if you want good life, some fs with compression (btrfs, zfs et al) If you want to cram more data onto the drive. note HDD drives are great for aggressive compression.

[–]2Peti 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you read about it, it's basically about how big files you will use on which FS. And how big a disk or partition you can use with which FS. For FAT32 it's a maximum of 4GB, for NTFS 16GB. NTFS includes journaling and compression, FAT32 doesn't. Those FS are used as system ones mainly for win. For 100GB storage (? is there a 100GB disk?) use extFAT. This FS is used for large and extra large backups up to 16EB.

[–]Hrafna55 2 points3 points  (0 children)

ext4. Unless you have a specific reason to use something else on Linux you should use ext4.

[–]gmthisfeller 4 points5 points  (0 children)

ext4 is a good choice. It is lean, fast, and above all robust.

[–]EatTomatos 1 point2 points  (0 children)

xfs will work and be stable on pretty much every hard drive, and not have a huge reserved space. It even supports 32bit systems. The only issue it's ever had, is it took some time to make udisk completely integrated with it.

[–]redrider65 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I wouldn't worry about that 100 GB sitting there minding its own business. You got 2 TB empty right now. When you've about filled that with data, then worry about the 100 GB. Ext4's the way to go, all around good.

[–]linux_enthusiast1 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Use ext4, dont over complicate it

[–]Superb-Marketing-453 1 point2 points  (0 children)

JFS is ultra fast but can't be shrinked and lacks Windows support

[–]Independent-Coat-685[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks. I will stick with ext4 and try to slim down root usage

[–]dbojan76 1 point2 points  (0 children)

ext4, use tune2fs command once

remember to add: fstrim -a

To daily execute using: sudo crontab -e

If you are only user

sudo chmod -R 775 /mnt/newhdd/

[–]funbike 0 points1 point  (0 children)

FAT32 should only be used for USB thumb drives and EFI boot partitions. It's only modern purpose is as a portable format for shared files. It's terrible on almost every metric.

ext4 is what I would use.

Whatever you choose, don't put swap on a HDD. If you want swap (and you should) and don't have SSD, then use ZRAM for swap instead.

[–]shawnfromnh1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

5% for trash per partition not the entire drive where windows uses 10%. You got 2 tbs I got a 512 with 4 linux distro's installed on that plus another drive for storage aka 8tb hdd not sdd but I'm using less than 2 tb for storage on like 8 partitions.

[–]koopz_ay 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Make your own

;)

[–]zardvark 0 points1 point  (0 children)

EXT4 is the best, default choice, unless you need / want the extra features offered by the alternative file systems.

[–]Linuxmonger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Big fan of XFS and ZFS...

[–]arglarg -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

ReiserFS used to be my favorite, but we'll...

I'd just go with ext3 in your case