Transferring legacy data from NTFS to ext4: is there inherent metadata loss by changing filesystems?
by L-28C from LinuxQuestions.org on (#6FRRJ)
I need to switch 20+ years worth of highly sentimental data from its native NTFS to ext4, for a variety of performance and practical reasons. I'm worried about potentially losing data stored in the filesystem header and/or any other places where metadata may be stored in NTFS.
This data has been moved across NTFS volumes multiple times, and thus far the only noticeable loss I've experienced has been the timestamps on directories. I don't want to move the data and think everything is gucci but then find out a year later that some crucial piece of historic information got lost during the transfer.
So the question is: Is there anything NTFS holds that ext4 can't hold, or anything that cannot be translated between the two?
(Bonus question: Anybody knows how to copy a file tree and keep the directory timestamps? I really like my accurate timestamps. Not even rsync can pull this off)
This data has been moved across NTFS volumes multiple times, and thus far the only noticeable loss I've experienced has been the timestamps on directories. I don't want to move the data and think everything is gucci but then find out a year later that some crucial piece of historic information got lost during the transfer.
So the question is: Is there anything NTFS holds that ext4 can't hold, or anything that cannot be translated between the two?
(Bonus question: Anybody knows how to copy a file tree and keep the directory timestamps? I really like my accurate timestamps. Not even rsync can pull this off)