Hi,
I will be using a Samsung T7 (2TB) for data backup and moving data between different computers (Linux systems). What would be the best filesystem for this purpose.
I read this article about F2FS on ArchWiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/F2FS
Do you think F2FS is a good choice? I use EXT4 for the system.
Unless btrfs is part of your backup strategy, I would use ext4 if you are sharing data only between Linux machines.
It is supported everywhere and is highly mature.
Thank you @dalto for the reply!
Btrfs is not something that I have used before and I feel not to know enough to manage it. Maybe in the future when I know more, I could use it.
I just need to make a small partition for saving some data from a Windows computer. Except for that the disk will be used for backup and share data in Linux machines.
I take your advice and and I will use EXT4.
Thanks again!
Isn’t it true though that using a more modern filesystem like btrfs or zfs can prevent bitrot since it is checksum based?
I’ve had plenty of experience with ext4 filesystem issues but I’m new to btrfs myself so I haven’t seen when everything actually goes bad 
and it usually always does.
Ext4 is solid, and will likely fit everything you need but I would look around to see if simply using a btrfs formatted disk might be a good fit for you even without using the add on features like snapshotting etc.
At the very least build some kind of file checking into your protocol like fsck to keep ontop of disk corruptions is important.
I’m running an old HP Elitedesk SFF PC as a SAMBA/NAS server, I have my two drives setup with btrfs (one for boot/OS and other for storage). What’s really great about this kind of setup, using SAMBA especially, is that you’re able to share files between operating systems and computers very quickly.
I have a Windows PC also and use Git Bash https://gitforwindows.org/ so that I have some basic terminal commands. I can scp files to and from the NAS in a breeze.
These old PC’s are stupid cheap, the processor is ancient but I can still stream 4k video, store pictures, software and notes across every computer in my household. I used to sneaker-net it but honestly this is the best home project I’ve done. You always know were to find things and can reach them easily.
Apart from the filesystem question (which is solved) I wanted to talk a bit about the issue itself:
Please do not use this as your only backup solution - SSDs are not meant to hold their content without power! If you need a cold-storage backup go for either tape (brutal expensive, enterprise stuff) or traditional spinning HDD. Yes, HDDs are not meant to be used like this either, but in opposition to SDDs they do not lose data without knowing it - which will happen with an SSD, given enough time. So if you go this way then renew the cells regularly - ALL the cells. Which means to completely write the SSD full with crap data, delete it and do your backup.
I bought a new laptop with Windows and removed the SSD for more than a year, very close to it been 2 years and had no issues with the SSD when I sold my computer. Inserted SSD and it booted to Windows a took about 3 hours to update. I have SSDs that are only 64GB that sat forever and still seem to have their data.
The last sentence holds the truth here: They seem to hold there data - but you cannot know that! The controller does not know if the current in the cell is still enough to gve him a 1 instead of a 0 until the controller reads it. And then the controller - if the current is not high enough to show a 1 - delivers a 0 and thinks that this is perfectly fine. The fact is: This can happen after 2 weeks, 3 months, 4 years - but it WILL happen sometimes in the future. And this is nothing I would like to have my backup on.
As with every drive i have ever used. I have bought brand new HDD drives that have failed. I also have a 256 SSD that is around ten years old that I still use on occasions.
Of course, that is true (as written above) - the difference is: A HDD knows of a bad sector, a SSD does not. Hence it is - compared to a spindle disk - a way less reliable medium for backups, if used as cold storage.