ntfs-3g i/o errors writing large audio files to usb hard drive

[toobuntu]

Binary package hint: nautilus

ntfs-3g i/o errors writing large audio files to usb hard drive

when copying files from internal hdd formatted ext3 to usb 2.0 500GB seagate hdd formatted ntfs (automagically mounted in /media as writable using ntfs-config):

1. 100% cpu usage (constant until file transfer is killed)

2. extremely show file transfers (time remaining 2.5-3 hours for transferring 280MB of flac, mp3, shn, and ape audio files; time remaining 10.5 hours --and climbing-- for transferring 3.1GB of isos; 15 sec to transfer 730KB) when copying or moving files onto the ntfs volume

  -large file transfers (that take 4-8 hours overnight) fail giving an I/O error message

Other (HAL) issues not directly related to ntfs-3g:

3. unable to eject or unmount the usb 2.0 external hard drive with nautilus, only a sudo umount works. even sudo umount /dev/sdb1 fails, saying device is busy. sudo umount /media/<hdd-name> gets rid of the desktop icon, then sudo umount /dev/sdb1 works.

  -the first time i 'ejected' the usb device, it seemed to start working. then a message popped up from the bottom right of taskbar saying something like the usb device can now be safely removed. this was followed by another pop up saying not to unplug the usb device because something still needs to be written to the disk.

4. once unmounted from cli, after unplugging the usb cable and replugging the usb cable back in, the hdd is not automagically mounted.

5. hdd did automagically mount after power cycling the hdd and then plugging it back in.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Apr 30 22:24:15 2007
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 7.04
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/nautilus
Package: nautilus 1:2.18.1-0ubuntu1
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcCmdline: nautilus --no-default-window --sm-client-id default2
ProcCwd: /home/todd
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: nautilus
Uname: Linux todd-laptop 2.6.20-15-generic #2 SMP Sun Apr 15 07:36:31 UTC 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

same as https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bug/111396

[Florent Mertens (givre)]

Not an ntfs-config nug, but a limitation of the ntfs-3g,
the NTFS driver.

[Szabolcs Szakacsits (szaka)]

For the speed problem: you need at least ntfs-3g version 1.328 but 1.417 is preferable, moreover you probably also need the nautilus performance fix at http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=363400

[toobuntu (toobuntu)]

Szabolcs: the link you provided mentions that the patch "was approved by Alex Larsson and committed to trunk and
gnome-2-18 branch." I'm using Ubuntu Feisty, which uses GNOME 2.18, so it seems that I should not need to apply the patch. Please advise if I'm correct to think so.

Florent or Szabolcs: Also, since Florent stated that this is a limitation of ntfs-3g, please let me know the max recommended hdd size and the max recommended file size for transferring to ntfs volumes using ntfs-3g. I thought leaving the default ntfs format on my new drive would be a good idea so I can access the music, isos, etc., from M$win at work, but maybe I'll need to use ext2ifs (no journaling support, though) or set up a samba share on a running virtual machine when I need those files. Xfs is supposed to be better for large audio files, etc, anyway. But that would be extremely inconvenient, though.

Finally, I should point out that I never had ANY speed issues using the plain old ntfs-3g driver in Edgy (sudo ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 ...). These issues first occurred for me using ntfs-config / mount.ntfs-3g in Feisty. In Edgy, I would move around large files, but only to partitions of a 60GB or 80GB drive (not 500GB like now).

Cheers,
Todd

[Szabolcs Szakacsits (szaka)]

If you have an older ntfs-3g release than version 1.328 then the slowness is an ntfs-3g limitation and you should upgrade to at least version 1.328 or preferable version 1.417.

The maximum supported NTFS file size and the volume size is 16777216 GB (16 EByte) but typically your hardware and Linux limits this to 8192-262144 GB. Windows can't support more either at the moment (maximum 262144 GB = 256 TB).

[Szabolcs Szakacsits (szaka)]

Ntfs-3g problem 1 and 2 are fixed in newer releases. The other problems are unrelated to ntfs-3g and Ubuntu nautilus problems are indeed reported by many people to ntfs-3g upstream. Please note that I/O errors are perfectly valid if there are storage problems, e.g. bad sectors, detached devices. The /var/log files could help to pinpoint the reason for the I/O errors.

[Szabolcs Szakacsits (szaka)]

From ntfs-3g upstream: the I/O problems are related to Seagate devices and are file system independent. The reason and a potential workaround is discussed here: http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/FAQ/DealWithAutoSpinDownOnSeagateFreeAgent

The problem is in the Linux kernel (USB driver, etc).

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

closing the nautilus task, the eject bug is known and there is bugs open about it