100% CPU load on NTFS

[Turambar]

I'm running Transmission 2.12 on Ubuntu 11.04, and when downloading a large file (10GB) to a NTFS partition, the system becomes very slow and the CPU load hits 100%. Is the NTFS partition the problem and is there any solution to this other than reformatting the partition?

[Jordan]

NTFS support on Linux has been very unfriendly to p2p-style apps in the past. I don't know whether or not this is still the case, but it wouldn't surprise me.

My recommendation for filesystems to use with p2p is (a) something reasonably modern, with (b) support for cheap file preallocation, and (c) use an unencrypted partition. Some filesystems that fit these criteria would be ext4, btrfs, and zfs.

[lazybones]

Isn't writing to NTFS in linux still marked experimental, unsafe and not recommended? It is not intended to be used with linux as a primary file system.

[Turambar]

I found a temporary solution until I can back up the data on the NTFS partition and format it ext4. I set Transmission to download files on a temporary folder on the much smaller ext4 partition and only move them to NTFS after they are finished. It's running smoothly now.

[blacke4dawn]

Isn't writing to NTFS in linux still marked experimental, unsafe and not recommended? It is not intended to be used with linux as a primary file system.

Only if you use the in-kernel driver. There is an fuse driver called ntfs-3g that is much better with good write support. Personally I have found that there are some default-permission issues but possibly it's that I just haven't configured it properly.

[lazybones]

Isn't writing to NTFS in linux still marked experimental, unsafe and not recommended? It is not intended to be used with linux as a primary file system.

Only if you use the in-kernel driver. There is an fuse driver called ntfs-3g that is much better with good write support. Personally I have found that there are some default-permission issues but possibly it's that I just haven't configured it properly.

It still isn't a primary linux filesystem,since bittorrent is fairly hard on disc writes to begin with, and transmission supports more advanced features such as sparse files... I suspect the OP would still be better off using a true linux filesystem... Or do what he is doing now, which is set the temp location to be on a linux file system and move the completed files to the NTFS volume.

[killemov]

NTFS support on Linux has been very unfriendly to p2p-style apps in the past. I don't know whether or not this is still the case, but it wouldn't surprise me.

My recommendation for filesystems to use with p2p is (a) something reasonably modern, with (b) support for cheap file preallocation, and (c) use an unencrypted partition. Some filesystems that fit these criteria would be ext4, btrfs, and zfs.

The good old ext2 should run just fine as well.

Ntfs-3g works. It's just a big resource hog. Apparently the ntfs-filesystem is more processor-intensive by design.

I warn everybody not to use ntfs on a processor limited device.

[Jordan]

ext4 is much preferred over ext2 because the former has support for fast, complete preallocation. That way Transmission can quickly preallocate flies and reduce disk fragmentation.

Still, even ext2 is faster than ntfs....

[andwan0]

My USB HD I bought came preformatted NTFS.
I will use the HD between my NAS and Windows laptop.

My Windows laptop won't be able to read EXT2 right?