Backups are crucial, especially if you prefer to store your data without third‑party “help”. A fast SSD makes the whole process much quicker, so I bought SanDisk Extreme portable SSD. It works great, a huge upgrade from my old hard drive.
Was it the best option? Not necessarily. Looking back, it probably would have been cheaper to buy an M.2 SSD and a USB enclosure separately. That route gives you more choice and better value for the same performance.
I plan to try that DIY option next, since I need another external drive anyway.
Picking decent storage isn’t enough, choosing the right file system can be a headache, too. I like ext4, and it works perfectly on my Linux laptop. But my backups also need to be readable on Windows and macOS, which rules ext4 out.
So, what’s left? There are two obvious candidates:
- exFAT
- NTFS
exFAT wins on universal compatibility. NTFS, however, is much more modern and packs useful features like journaling. It’s also better supported than you might think: it works natively on Windows and runs well on Linux thanks to NTFS‑3G.
The only real catch is macOS: it can read NTFS volumes fine, but it can’t write to them by default. Since I don’t plan to write backup data from a Mac, I’ve gone with NTFS.