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What is the best filesystem to use cross-platform (Linux, Windows, OS X) which supports disk sizes of at least 2TB and file sizes >4GB?

I'm planning to use it on a USB drive on different computers.

Are there any filesystems that can be used on all the named OSes without installing additional drivers?

Zulakis
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2 Answers2

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Look at "OS support" on the Comparison of filesystems page on Wikipedia. This lists OS support by file system.

As you can see, there is no file system that is covers all OS platforms, the closest being FAT16. FAT32 is a close 2nd, requiring 3rd party driver support for z/OS.

Since you require read/write support and large files and file systems, the best option would be NTFS. Obviously, Windows OSs support NTFS. Modern Linux kernels (2.2+) can read and write NTFS natively. OS X supports reading NTFS natively and writing with NTFS-3G.

SharpC
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Keltari
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Microsoft's exFAT filesystem is now supported as read-and-write (R&W) by:

  1. Mainline support in the Linux kernel;
    1. Every rolling-release distribution, and every static release since approximately 2021;
    2. the Android Open Source Project (AOSP);
  2. macOS; and:
  3. Windows XP KB955704 to Windows 11.

Such widespread support can be reasonably considered to be support for every significant operating system.

NTFS almost applies here, but no AOSP-based OS I've utilized has by-default supported it.

RokeJulianLockhart
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