How to migrate the storagenode Windows to Linux

Linux can read NTFS, but can be safer to copy over network from windows host to linux host.

  1. NTFS is MS proprietary filesystem, and while linux can read and write it, if there is anything wrong with it, it may not be as well equipped to handle it as windows.
  2. If the disk is old – it is not unheard of (old) disks failing to spin up or developing bad sectors after years of flawless operation, due to some minor stresses during move. It has happened to me repeatedly – take old disk from a perfectly working array, 0 bad sectors, with monthly scrubs, just as part of maintenance, attach to another machine, scan – and bam, multiple bad sectors.

Alternatively, you can run chkdsk on a disk, to correct all possible inconsistencies in the filesystem and then move the disk to linux computer… but I would still feel safer letting the proprietary OS deal with its proprietary FS.

1 Like