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When Google releases their Chrome OS, my first prerequisite would be to work with my current files. What filesystems would it work with? (have read-write access). Would it support Windows partitions? (NTFS) and Unix partitions? (EXT/UFS). And lastly, which filesystem would it use natively and/or perform best with?

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  • maybe the title "What filesystems should Google Chrome OS work with?" would be better?
    – Bruce McLeod
    Jul 17, 2009 at 13:54

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As it's going to be based on the Linux kernel, I think you would be pretty safe in assuming it will support the usual ext3 filesystem.

It's impossible to guess what Google are going to do, but if they want to make any progress with their 'OS' they will need to ensure a maximum level of interoperability with existing systems to make the changeover as easy as possible for new users.

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  • 4
    +1 for "It's impossible to guess what Google are going to do"
    – innaM
    Jul 17, 2009 at 9:54
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My understanding is that Google OS will be built on top of Linux kernel, so file system support will be provided in the kernel layer. Expect anything typical for linux.

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Depending on what exactly it is, it's possible that most of its storage will be "in the cloud".

That aside, as others have said, it's probably going to use the normal Linux-ey file systems. You'll likely be able to use FUSE to use other file systems with it.

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  • Yeah, I'm pretty sure they'll publish some sort of GDrive service, but they'll definitely continue supporting all file systems common today. It wouldn't work otherwise.
    – Blixt
    Jul 17, 2009 at 8:06
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It really depends on how easy Google wants to make for people to switch to their operating system.

If we look at when Microsoft introduced NT for the first time, it supported as much hardware and file systems as possible, and it continues to support both HFS, NTFS and FAT32 out of the box.

So if Google wants to build bridges to the ChromeOS, they should support HFS+, NTFS, FAT32 and ext3 that way it will ease transition and compatibility with other operating systems and maximise their chances of commercial success.

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    Wasn't it HPFS, not HFS, that Windows NT used? (HPFS isn't supported anymore though)
    – u1686_grawity
    Jul 17, 2009 at 8:42
  • I'm not sure about HPFS but HFS+ is the mac file system and windows server 2003 still supports it for its services for macintosh file sharing
    – Bruce McLeod
    Jul 17, 2009 at 13:53
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Given that it is going to be targeted at Netbooks I don't think that native Windows FS support will be that high on the agenda. NTFS support is mainly useful if you are dual-booting and want to be able to access the other OS.

I would expect ext3 (possibly 4) for the native partition as well as CIFS for network shares, FAT(16/32) for mounting USB devices and possibly a FUSE based cloud storage (GDrive has been rumoured for a long time but I'm still not convinced it is coming).

Given that it is a Linux Kernel many other filesystems are potentially available but many will probably be dropped to minimise the install size and boot time.

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  • I would argue that NTFS would be useful for attaching external harddrives and using those properly.
    – kastermester
    Jul 17, 2009 at 8:47
  • It would support NTFS, and the rest of the range that Linux works with, but there's no reason to use it internally.
    – salmonmoose
    Aug 28, 2009 at 22:25
  • NTFS runs nicely nowadays through ntfs-3g. Plus FAT and NTFS are useful for external HDDs.
    – Ivan Vučica
    Oct 10, 2009 at 15:14

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