[SWLUG] Linux friendly USB hard disks (i.e. ones that can be ext4 formatted)

[Mark Summerfield]

Hi,

I want to get an external hard disk that I can use to rsync my /home
directory to make restoring a quick and easy proposition. (I already
take backup "snapshots" of key files onto USB memory sticks, but these
only allow me to reconstruct. I now want to be able to mirror back from
the external drive if I ever need to replace the internal hard disk.)

As far as I can tell from googling pretty well any USB hard disk will
work fine with Linux (apart from some Seagate models).

However, when I read more closely these all seemed to be being used
using FAT32 or NTFS or whatever Mac OS X uses. The _only_ one I've found
that someone says they've reformatted (using ext3) is a Toshiba 3.5" 1TB
disk.

Has anyone on the list successfully formatted an external USB hard disk
using ext4 or other linux filesystem?

Also, is ext4 the best filesystem for my use case, i.e., simply for
mirroring and (hopefully never!) mirroring back?

Thanks!

PS I bought a new desktop from DNUK (as per recommendations on this
list). They answered several questions before I bought and several
after---and all promptly. If the machine turns out to be as good as the
service I've had so far I'll be very happy:-)

-- 
Mark Summerfield, Qtrac Ltd, www.qtrac.eu
    C++, Python, Qt, PyQt - training and consultancy
        "Advanced Qt Programming" - ISBN 0321635906
            http://www.qtrac.eu/aqpbook.html