Copying files to an ext3 drive, from an NTFS drive. Is it possible?

[Kirsebaer]

Hi, I have Windows 10 Pro -> Asus RT-AC68U -> nvidia shield TV

I would like to be able to transfer files from my Windows 10 Pro desktop where I use NTFS, to my USB hard drives that are connected to my Asus RT-AC68U router using NFS, which would require me to format the drives using ext3.

I have read that NFS is superior to SMB when it comes to transfer speed so I would like to switch from SMB and reformat the two USB mounted NTFS hard drives that are attached to my router.

Is it possible to copy files back and forth, and stream the files from the USB hard drives using my Windows Pro desktop, after I have formatted the drives as ext3?

I've enabled support for NFS in Window 10 Pro, in "disable and enable Windows features". I hope that might make it possible to both see the files attached to my router, when they are formatted as ext3 drives, but since I have a lot of files on my network drives that I would need to swap back and forth between my laptop, desktop and a spare backup drive, before I can format the USB drive as an ext3 drive and test it, I wanted to hear your experience first.

I assume Kodi can read files transferred to the ext3 drives, since Kodi support NFS, but perhaps I'm mistaken.

 

[ColinTaylor]

NFS and SMB/CIFS are network protocols (or a network filesystem). They are independent of whatever filesystem is used by the underlying media.

So irrespective of whether the disk is formatted as ext2, FAT32, NTFS, etc it can be shared across the network using NFS and/or SMB.

 

[Kirsebaer]

Ah I see. I just read here that in order to use NFS I would have to format the drive using ext3 since NTFS wasn't supported/doesn't work. So I would still have to re-format my drives. Do you know if I could transfer files back and forth using Windows Pro, or would it be impossible for Windows to see the network share?

 

[ColinTaylor]

I can't think of a reason why it wouldn't work, but I've never tried using a Windows NFS client only Unix. The easiest thing to do is for you to try it for yourself. Assuming the Windows NFS client is like the Unix ones you will need to "mount" the remote share, you can't "browse" to it like you can with Windows shares.

 

[ColinTaylor]

OK I've just formatted a USB drive as NTFS, plugged it into my router and shared it with NFS. I was able to mount, read and write to it with no problems on a Ubuntu PC.

 

[Kirsebaer]

What a great idea!! I can try and format a USB drive as ext3 and mount it in my router and see if I can transfer files using Windows 10 Pro. I'll report my findings back for others to have. Thanks again Colin!

 

[Kirsebaer]

Okay, I formatted a USB drive with ext3 and I could immediately see it in the Asus/Merlin interface. I could also see the drive as a network drive in Windows 10 so I copied a video to the USB drive. It copied without any errors and I can stream the file from the USB drive. Pretty cool! I didn't think Windows would recognize what I understand is Linux file system. Next I tried to add the USB drive as a source in Kodi, but despite being able to see the USB drive in Kodi I wasn't able to see and play the copied file. I assume from reading the NFS Kodi Wiki that I need to give Kodi permission to access the files/folder somehow. In the Merlin router interface I have added "rw, sync" since I read that was a bare minimum in this link:

I couldn't get it working but I just wanted to let others know that it's indeed possible for Windows to both see and copy files to a ext3 formatted hard drive by using that is connected to the Asus RT-AC68U, by using Merlin.