NTFS3

Summary and Features

NTFS3 is fully functional NTFS Read-Write driver. The driver works with NTFS versions up to 3.1. File system type to use on mount is ntfs3.

  • This driver implements NTFS read/write support for normal, sparse and compressed files.

  • Supports native journal replaying.

  • Supports NFS export of mounted NTFS volumes.

  • Supports extended attributes. Predefined extended attributes:

    • system.ntfs_security gets/sets security

      Descriptor: SECURITY_DESCRIPTOR_RELATIVE

    • system.ntfs_attrib gets/sets ntfs file/dir attributes.

      Note: Applied to empty files, this allows to switch type between sparse(0x200), compressed(0x800) and normal.

    • system.ntfs_attrib_be gets/sets ntfs file/dir attributes.

      Same value as system.ntfs_attrib but always represent as big-endian (endianness of system.ntfs_attrib is the same as of the CPU).

Mount Options

The list below describes mount options supported by NTFS3 driver in addition to generic ones. You can use every mount option with no option. If it is in this table marked with no it means default is without no.

iocharset=name

This option informs the driver how to interpret path strings and translate them to Unicode and back. If this option is not set, the default codepage will be used (CONFIG_NLS_DEFAULT).

Example: iocharset=utf8

uid=

gid=

umask=

Controls the default permissions for files/directories created after the NTFS volume is mounted.

dmask=

Instead of specifying umask which applies both to files and directories, fmask applies only to files and dmask only to directories.

fmask=

nohidden

Files with the Windows-specific HIDDEN (FILE_ATTRIBUTE_HIDDEN) attribute will not be shown under Linux.

sys_immutable

Files with the Windows-specific SYSTEM (FILE_ATTRIBUTE_SYSTEM) attribute will be marked as system immutable files.

hide_dot_files

Updates the Windows-specific HIDDEN (FILE_ATTRIBUTE_HIDDEN) attribute when creating and moving or renaming files. Files whose names start with a dot will have the HIDDEN attribute set and files whose names do not start with a dot will have it unset.

windows_names

Prevents the creation of files and directories with a name not allowed by Windows, either because it contains some not allowed character (which are the characters “ * / : < > ? \ | and those whose code is less than 0x20), because the name (with or without extension) is a reserved file name (CON, AUX, NUL, PRN, LPT1-9, COM1-9) or because the last character is a space or a dot. Existing such files can still be read and renamed.

discard

Enable support of the TRIM command for improved performance on delete operations, which is recommended for use with the solid-state drives (SSD).

force

Forces the driver to mount partitions even if volume is marked dirty. Not recommended for use.

sparse

Create new files as sparse.

showmeta

Use this parameter to show all meta-files (System Files) on a mounted NTFS partition. By default, all meta-files are hidden.

prealloc

Preallocate space for files excessively when file size is increasing on writes. Decreases fragmentation in case of parallel write operations to different files.

acl

Support POSIX ACLs (Access Control Lists). Effective if supported by Kernel. Not to be confused with NTFS ACLs. The option specified as acl enables support for POSIX ACLs.

Todo list

  • Full journaling support over JBD. Currently journal replaying is supported which is not necessarily as effective as JBD would be.

References