Convert NTFS to EXT4

1. offizieller Beitrag

    Hi all. I have been running OMV4 for about 6 months now. I have the smallest 'server cupboard' in the utility room where I have the broadband modem, Unifi kit and an old HP Elitedesk 800 G1 DM as a mini server.


    Connected to the server is a USB3 external hard drive (WD Elements 4TB) which stores all my media and CCTV footage. I made the mistake of setting this up as NTFS when connecting to my Windows PC when I opened the box, so OMV has just used that. NTFS is slower than EXT4 as far as I can tell (copying data is slow and Torrents don't consistently use the full speed of my internet connection), so I'd like to convert it.


    I think I'm right in saying I cannot convert the system without losing data. I don't have another disk to move the data to, so I think a possible solution is to:


    1. Boot into GParted
    2. Shrink the NTFS partition to the 1TB of data I have used currently
    3. Create a 3TB EXT4 partition
    4. Move/copy the 1TB of data to the ext4 partition
    5. Delete the NTFS partition and extend the ext4 parition to the full 4TB


    The problem is, I don't know how OMV will cope with this. I have a lot of Docker containers looking at that current NTFS partition. Is it possible to point the shared folders to the new location before the docker process starts up and gets upset for not seeing all the folders it expects?


    Thanks.

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    Yes, it is possible. One way could be to go to a 50/50 state with the NTFS and the EXT4 partition. Then replicate the NTFS contents in the EXT4 partition. Then update the uuid and partition labels so that the EXT4 partition replaces the NTFS partition and see what happens. You may perhaps also have to update the filesystem used in fstab and/or in OMV configuration files. Not sure. Make sure that you backup/clone the root filesystem first. I think that you only need to manipulate uuid and partition labels. Not the partition numbering. Not sure.
    Once you get things working properly with the EXT4 partition you can delete the NTFS4 partition. You might want to shrink it and image it for future reference if something you didn't notice is wrong. You could save the NTFS image on the EXT4 partition. I use partclone for this type of cloning. For manipulating partitions I use a desktop Linux system with gparted.
    It is possible that what you have on the NTFS partition is bad and not working correctly. You might fix that by recreating it from scratch using the OMV GUI as far as possible. Or afterwards correct based on something that was created via the OMV GUI on a EXT4 partition.


    I suspect fresh install might be a faster way forward.


    Since you have no backups you obviously don't put much value on the current configuration or the data it contains. Or at least less value than what a backup HDD would cost you. So you might just as well delete it and start over.

    Be smart - be lazy. Clone your rootfs.
    OMV 5: 9 x Odroid HC2 + 1 x Odroid HC1 + 1 x Raspberry Pi 4

    Einmal editiert, zuletzt von Adoby ()

    FWIW, how I would do it would be like this: copy data off to another location. Create new ext4 (btrfs is what I would use) file system. Copy data back.


    You could probably even use the same path names after as well so you wouldn't have to update all the things pointing to it.

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