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I have a Samsung Portable SSD T5 (500GB) which has been formatted as an NTFS volume and contains my iTunes music library.

For the majority of the time, I am using it on a Windows 10 system where I have iTunes running.

Once a week, I disconnect it from the Windows 10 machine and connect it to a Windows 7 machine (where my backup software is running). On the Windows 7 machine I don't deliberately write to any files on the drive - the only thing that should be happening is that my backup software detects any changes on the drive and runs a backup to the cloud.

The problem is that periodically, when I move the SSD drive back to the Windows 10 PC, several files have become corrupted or deleted. For example, today:

  • My iTunes library (.itl) file was missing from the drive
  • Music that I had ripped within the last few weeks was completely missing (folders and files)
  • Some folders had become corrupt on the drive, so File Explorer showed them but I got an error when trying to go into the folder.

I have also observed weird stuff in the past - e.g. .m4a files were truncated.

So it seems like there's a widespread vulnerability to file/directory corruption on this drive when moving it between systems. But I need to do this, as it's part of my current backup strategy.

I have checked Device Manager, and on both systems the "Removal policy" is set to "Quick removal" which disables write caching - this was the default option, and it seems like it would reduce the chance of corruption on the drive.

Is there anything I can do to determine why this is happening, and reduce this chance of this happening in the future?

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  • There is a very similar question unfortunately without a real solution: superuser.com/q/1044206/62676 - Didi you perform a file-system consistency check (chkdsk) on Windows 10?
    – Robert
    Commented Jun 27, 2021 at 12:03
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    @Robert - I did, and there were a few errors. I repaired the disk, but it keeps happening again periodically.
    – LeopardSkinPillBoxHat
    Commented Jun 27, 2021 at 12:14
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    Windows 10 uses fast start up as default. And turns it back on with updates, even if you have turned it off. Normal shutdown then leaves NTFS partition in hibernated state and any use from another system may corrupt it.
    – oldfred
    Commented Jun 27, 2021 at 15:19
  • @oldfred - do you mean that the NFTS partition on the SSD drive will remain hibernated, even if I "Safely remove hardware and eject media" on the Windows 10 machine, and then connect it to the Windows 7 machine?
    – LeopardSkinPillBoxHat
    Commented Jun 27, 2021 at 21:22
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    Potentially. askubuntu.com/questions/843153/… & askubuntu.com/questions/145902/… & tenforums.com/tutorials/…
    – oldfred
    Commented Jun 27, 2021 at 21:27

1 Answer 1

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While NTFS is in theory fully forward and backward compatible across Windows versions, it is not totally compatible. Moving an NTFS disk from one Windows version to the other is not advised on a regular basis.

You will get better results by converting the disk to a known and static (non-evolving) format, such as FAT32 or exFAT.

See the article What’s the Difference Between FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS?

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  • This is a good answer, but FAT32 does have limitations in terms of maximum file/disk size. Not sure if these limitations will affect me though. Someone else suggested to me that formatting the NTFS volume on the Windows 7 machine might be an option, as it only relies on Windows 10 being backwards compatible rather than Windows 7 being forwards compatible. Do you think this might work?
    – LeopardSkinPillBoxHat
    Commented Jun 30, 2021 at 5:47
  • A disk formatted on Windows 7, will be upgraded once it's put on Windows 10. If you expect having files bigger than 4 GB then exFAT is a better choice.
    – harrymc
    Commented Jun 30, 2021 at 6:00
  • unfortunately I cannot use exFAT as I am using Carbonite for backup and it supports only NTFS or FAT32.
    – LeopardSkinPillBoxHat
    Commented Jun 30, 2021 at 10:12

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