Connected to my Roon ROCK NUC, I’m preparing to change out its 20TB USB external hard drive, to a 24TB USB hard drivel. I’ve obtained the following from an AI search:
IF…“you care more about Linux‑native robustness and journaling than about plugging the drive into other systems; EXT4 generally offers better performance and integrity on a pure Linux host.”
My current 20TB drive formatted as ExFat, has served me well. And I can easily connect it to a windows PC, add files to it and manage it and copy from one HD to another, using Windows File Explorer (as I’m about to do).
However, for 20TB drives or greater, is:
EXT4 that much more advantageous &/or more highly recommended, than an ExFat formatted HD? If yes, why and will I notice any appreciable difference(s)?
I ask, because the 20TB ExFat drive currently attached to the Roon ROCK (NUC) has been rock solid (no pun), running 24/7 for over a couple years now, without any hiccups.
I’m not that knowledgeable about file systems. But FAT (and my guess ExFAT) as well are not that storage efficient. The larger the size of the partition(s). The more space a file will occupy. So the more space it will waste.
My Roon ROCK has a ExFAT formatted USB hard drive attached to it. Only 4 tb in size though. Of which just over 1,5 tb is available space. So my library is quite a bit smaller then yours it would seem.
For me the reason to go with ExFAT is convenience. ExFAT is the only filesystem that Windows, MacOS and Linux fully support. And since I am using a MacBook Pro, a Windows gaming laptop and the rest run on Linux Mint.
I’m not sure that the storage inefficiency of exFat is too much of an issue for a drive used for Roon local library storage. The inefficiency comes from the minimum allocatable storage block (cluster) size which, for modern large drives is going to be 128kB. However, media files are large in comparison to this minimum allocation block size and so the inefficiency is likely to be small. For example, with a 128kB cluster size and, say FLAC files in the other of 10MB or more the inefficiency is in the region of 1.5% or less.
The storage inefficiency is more significant when many small files (say significantly less than 1MB) are stored. This may be the case, with Roon, if, for example) the drive is used for database backups.
Finally, using exFAT, the cluster size on the 24TB drive will be the same as it is on the current 20TB drive.
Other aspects of the two filesystems may, or may not be important. As a rule, exFAT is fast in operation but less resilient to abnormal events. Ext4 is much more resilient but might not offer quite the same performance (although it likely will be very close). However, for Roon local library use, and even backup use, filesystem performance is not significant so this is a point in favour of ext4.
If your preferred method of managing the content of the drive is to move it to a Windows computer (not having used one, I don’t know the filesystem support of MAC OS so I can’t comment on use with MACs but the OP stated that a Windows computer was used), then exFAT is definitely the best option since Windows does not include native support for ext4.
If, on the other hand, you are happy to use the network share to manage the drive content then you can consider the use of the ext4 filesystem.
MacOS doesn’t support ext4 either as far as I know. Apple has their own filesystem APFS and the older MacOS Journaled. MacOS does have full support for ExFAT.
However NTFS (Windows own filesystem) is only partially supported. MacOS can read NTFS partitions, but can’t write to them. If you have a Mac and want to write to NTFS formatted drives, you’re forced to use external programs such as NTFS for Mac.
Wade_Oram already covered the storage-efficiency aspect well. For large media files such as FLAC, the cluster-size inefficiency of exFAT is negligible, even on 20–24 TB drives.
The more relevant difference at this scale is failure-recovery behaviour:
ext4 is a journaling filesystem. After a crash or power loss, it can replay its journal and remount in seconds.
exFAT is not journaling. If the drive is marked dirty after an unclean shutdown, a full filesystem check may be required. On a 24 TB exFAT volume, that check can take many hours, during which the Roon library is unavailable. This is not about a higher likelihood of failure, but about much longer recovery time when something eventually goes wrong.
Performance differences are irrelevant for Roon use: music files are read sequentially, USB HDD speed is the bottleneck, and neither filesystem will make Roon noticeably faster or slower.
The main practical trade-off is data management:
exFAT allows direct attachment to a Windows PC and full-speed USB copying.
ext4 has no native Windows support; content management typically happens over the network.
Note: Copying ~20 TB over Gigabit Ethernet can take 2–3 days of continuous transfer. This is often the strongest argument against ext4 in real-world home use.
Conclusion:
If you prioritise fastest recovery after crashes and are comfortable managing content over the network, ext4 is technically superior. If you value easy Windows access and your current exFAT setup has already proven stable, exFAT remains a perfectly valid choice, especially when combined with a UPS.
Thanks for the replies and PerttiS, you’re above two paragraphs provide a more than relevant pro/con cases for each format. Now, I need to weigh and decide which format I believe to be the best for my situation.
My current 20TB ExFat HD has had numerous power outages and purposeful manual NUC shut-downs without a negative consequence. Living on borrowed time comes to mind however; especially because until the last couple of days of researching the NUC/USB HD subject, I wasn’t aware that shutting down the NUC with it’s power button to offload the 20TB HD when needed, wasn’t exactly a recommended thing to do.
There is no harm in using the short-press power button on a NUC with Roon ROCK provided that the short press action is set to ‘shutdown’ the NUC rather than power off the NUC (I believe that this is the default setting in the BIOS of most, if not all, NUCs). In this event, a graceful shutdown, including flushing the IO and cleanly un-mounting the filesystem will occur.
Using a long press (or any other method) to immediately turn power off, however, is definitely not recommended except as a last resort.
Thanks for the input and clarification Wade_Oram! It’s good to know exactly how the NUC is best shut-down.
During a power outage, the power is instantaneously cut. I wonder if this occurrence acts like a short-press on the NUC’s power button? I would guess not, because unless there is a capacitive charge remaining to enable a “graceful shutdown”, the NUC would probably act like a long press on its power button (just a guess) and not be allowed to gracefully shutdown. But obviously, I haven’t a clue what the correct answer is.
This brings-up the question of how important an uninterruptible power supply is for the 24/7 NUC and its 24/7 20TB Ext.USB HD? After more than a couple years of continuous operation and undergoing several power outages, the Roon>ROCK>NUC has never had an obvious problem. But is that the norm, or is a negative fate being tempted each time it happens, sans back-up power?
I wouldn’t run a RoonServer without backup power as the database is held in RAM. The issue though is ROCK cannot speak with the UPS, so you will need to get to the PC to turn it off gracefully. Linux and Windows builds can, so, when it goes to backup power, the UPS can shut down the PC gracefully when it begins to run out of power.
I agree what you say is correct but I have been running a 10i7 NUC during all the trials and tribulations of our (South African) “load shedding” where the power just drops , sometimes 3 times a day.
These days I shut down at night with a short click.
The BIOS is set to restart on power resume
Cross Fingers I have yet to have a problem. I understand the risk and keep backups daily.
Mike_O_Neill
Mike O’Neill
1d
I agree what you say is correct but I have been running a 10i7 NUC during all the trials and tribulations of our (South African) “load shedding” where the power just drops , sometimes 3 times a day.
These days I shut down at night with a short click.
The BIOS is set to restart on power resume
Cross Fingers I have yet to have a problem. I understand the risk and keep backups daily.
Your outages provide a significant testament to the robustness of your Roon and 10i7 NUC system. My recovery instances have been as positive as yours (never a hiccup), but not nearly so frequent.
Yes indeed, your last sentence says it all!
Because my music library is rarely added to, I have hard drives with all my music stored elsewhere in case there was a fire or some other such occurrence. I wouldn’t want to lose all the time, effort and money I’ve spent curating the music collection.
Roon ROCK and Nucleus systems are more resilient to power outages because they write to to the disk (either the OS disk or the media disk) relatively rarely and thus the time windows when filesystem corruption can occurr is a fairly small percentage of the total operating time.
Torben_Rick
(Torben - A Dane living in Hamburg - Roon Lifer)
15
Isn’t it correct that ExFat can be used under Windows and Linux?
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