I want to run a Plex server that will serve video files off an external hard drive. The Plex server will run on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. However, because I primarily work on Windows, I feel the external drive should be compatible with Windows. (If the Ubuntu server goes down, for instance, I would be accessing those files using Windows. In addition, there is a chance I will erase Ubuntu and put Windows on the Server. I do not need MacOS support.) The number of writes will be very small.
The question is, what file system format should I use? I understand I'm limited to exFAT and NTFS if I want basic Windows support. And, I hear Ubuntu can write to either of these file systems. But what I don't know is, what the community would recommend I use for this use case: very few writes, home use, serving video files.
With the ntfs-3g package, does Ubuntu journal its writes?
I understand that NTFS filesystem errors can't be fixed using Ubuntu, and must be fixed using Windows. I suppose if there is a problem with the filesystem itself, I can fairly easily plug the drive into a Windows machine for repair. But exFAT doesn't even support journaling... right? Can Ubuntu fix exFAT filesystem errors?
I'm aware that NTFS has better permissions support than exFAT, but I don't care about permissions for this use case.
What are some of the more subtle differences between these two formats (exFAT and NTFS) that I should be aware of? Which one has more stable support on Ubuntu? What does the community recommend?
(Should I consider UDF? I know much less about it than the others. Does it support journaling? Etc.)
I suppose my main question is: which of these two main Windows-centric options (NTFS, exFAT) is expected to exhibit better data safety (avoiding data loss), when run under Ubuntu?
