Does anyone know what is the best filesystem to use for DVR recordings? In other words, are some filesystems better suited to accessing a small number of large files vs. a large number of small files?
My DVR server is a Mac mini and I'm using an external drive formatted with exFAT. Is there any advantage to re-formatting the disk as JFS?
exFAT is more compatible than any other filesystem in case you ever have to move to another operating system.
True, which is why that's the FS I'm currently using. But it's become apparent to me that I will not be moving the DVR to another computer anytime soon, so portability is not so important to me. Just wondering if I'm leaving some performance on the table. For instance, when I skip ahead in a recording, it's not as close to instantaneous as I would like it to be (sometimes it takes several seconds). Wondering if something as simple as changing the FS would make any difference.
It all depends on your needs. If you're going to want to access the drive from a different computer/OS, exFAT or NTFS are your better options. (Stay away from FAT32/VFAT as some recordings can be quite large, and FAT32 has a maximum file size of 4GB.)
If you're only going to use the drive with your Mac, then HFS+ is perfectly fine.
(I use a USB3 drive to hold my recordings, and I have it formatted as Ext4. Use what works for you.)
I use a Linux machine as the server and the drive the recordings are stored to is EXT4.
Works fine ad directory is also a network share, so any of my computers can access the files.
You would not want to use a file system that has the 4GB file size limit, if u ever would record a long HD movie or something, wold get big fast.
I’ll chime in and say I doubt file system will have a measurable difference in performance, as far as skipping, etc.
FAT32 has a file size limit of 4gb so recordings will be truncated. You definitely don’t want to use that.
Agreed. Question withdrawn.