Filesystem recommendations
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From: B. Alexander on 24 Apr 2010 14:00 Hi, I have a question on filesystems. Back in the day, I started using reiser3. It was faster than ext3, and it could be extended without umounting the filesystem (which has since been fixed in ext3), plus, unlike any filesystem I have encountered, it could be reduced in size. Well, now reiser3 is very long in the tooth, reiser4 will probably never go anywhere, so I'm wondering what filesystems are recommended. Last I heard, ext4 is stablizing, but it had problems with filesystem corruption, though that was mid-fall last year, IIRC. So now, I would like to slowly start replacing my reiser3 partitions with...something else. There are two options, the old standards, e.g. ext3/4, xfs, etc, and then there are a slew of new filesystems, such as nilfs2, btrfs and exofs. I'm talking about a range of machines, from workstations to servers to NFS and storage servers with multi-terabyte disks, and a backup server with several hundred gigs of backups. Does anyone have suggestions and practical experience with the pros and cons of the various filesystems? Thanks, --b
From: Ron Johnson on 24 Apr 2010 15:20 On 04/24/2010 12:53 PM, B. Alexander wrote: > Hi, > > I have a question on filesystems. Back in the day, I started using > reiser3. It was faster than ext3, and it could be extended without > umounting the filesystem (which has since been fixed in ext3), plus, > unlike any filesystem I have encountered, it could be reduced in size. > > Well, now reiser3 is very long in the tooth, reiser4 will probably never > go anywhere, so I'm wondering what filesystems are recommended. Last I > heard, ext4 is stablizing, but it had problems with filesystem > corruption, though that was mid-fall last year, IIRC. > > So now, I would like to slowly start replacing my reiser3 partitions > with...something else. There are two options, the old standards, e.g. > ext3/4, xfs, etc, and then there are a slew of new filesystems, such as > nilfs2, btrfs and exofs. > > I'm talking about a range of machines, from workstations to servers to > NFS and storage servers with multi-terabyte disks, and a backup server > with several hundred gigs of backups. > > Does anyone have suggestions and practical experience with the pros and > cons of the various filesystems? > XFS is the canonical fs for when you have lots of Big Files. I've also seen simple benchmarks on this list showing that it's faster than ext3/ext4. nilfs2, btrfs and exofs are *definitely* still beta or even alpha. xfs and ext[34] can all be extended. For production servers with a working UPS, I'd go with ext3 for / & /boot and xfs (since it hates sudden power outages) for the "/data" directories. For production workstations, I'd stick with the standby ext3 for / & /boot and ext3 or xfs for /home and "/data" (depending on the workload). -- Dissent is patriotic, remember? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST(a)lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster(a)lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4BD3425F.6080301(a)cox.net
From: B. Alexander on 24 Apr 2010 18:40 On Sat, Apr 24, 2010 at 3:11 PM, Ron Johnson <ron.l.johnson(a)cox.net> wrote: > On 04/24/2010 12:53 PM, B. Alexander wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> I have a question on filesystems. Back in the day, I started using >> reiser3. It was faster than ext3, and it could be extended without >> umounting the filesystem (which has since been fixed in ext3), plus, >> unlike any filesystem I have encountered, it could be reduced in size. >> >> Well, now reiser3 is very long in the tooth, reiser4 will probably never >> go anywhere, so I'm wondering what filesystems are recommended. Last I >> heard, ext4 is stablizing, but it had problems with filesystem >> corruption, though that was mid-fall last year, IIRC. >> >> So now, I would like to slowly start replacing my reiser3 partitions >> with...something else. There are two options, the old standards, e.g. >> ext3/4, xfs, etc, and then there are a slew of new filesystems, such as >> nilfs2, btrfs and exofs. >> >> I'm talking about a range of machines, from workstations to servers to >> NFS and storage servers with multi-terabyte disks, and a backup server >> with several hundred gigs of backups. >> >> Does anyone have suggestions and practical experience with the pros and >> cons of the various filesystems? >> >> > XFS is the canonical fs for when you have lots of Big Files. I've also > seen simple benchmarks on this list showing that it's faster than ext3/ext4. > Thats cool. What about Lots of Little Files? That was another of the draws of reiser3. I have a space I mount on /media/archive, which has everything from mp3/oggs and movies, to books to a bunch of tiny files. This will probably be the first victim for the xfs test partition. nilfs2, btrfs and exofs are *definitely* still beta or even alpha. > > xfs and ext[34] can all be extended. For production servers with a working > UPS, I'd go with ext3 for / & /boot and xfs (since it hates sudden power > outages) for the "/data" directories. For production workstations, I'd > stick with the standby ext3 for / & /boot and ext3 or xfs for /home and > "/data" (depending on the workload). > Define "hates sudden power outages"...Is it recoverable? Thanks for the info, Ron, --b
From: Ron Johnson on 24 Apr 2010 18:50 On 04/24/2010 05:31 PM, B. Alexander wrote: > On Sat, Apr 24, 2010 at 3:11 PM, Ron Johnson<ron.l.johnson(a)cox.net> wrote: [snip] >> >> XFS is the canonical fs for when you have lots of Big Files. I've also >> seen simple benchmarks on this list showing that it's faster than ext3/ext4. >> > > Thats cool. What about Lots of Little Files? That was another of the draws > of reiser3. I have a space I mount on /media/archive, which has everything > from mp3/oggs and movies, to books to a bunch of tiny files. This will > probably be the first victim for the xfs test partition. That same unofficial benchmark showed surprising small-file speed by xfs. >> xfs and ext[34] can all be extended. For production servers with a working >> UPS, I'd go with ext3 for /& /boot and xfs (since it hates sudden power >> outages) for the "/data" directories. For production workstations, I'd >> stick with the standby ext3 for /& /boot and ext3 or xfs for /home and >> "/data" (depending on the workload). >> > > Define "hates sudden power outages"...Is it recoverable? > They got pretty corrupted. Maybe it's been robustified in the intervening years. -- Dissent is patriotic, remember? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST(a)lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster(a)lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4BD37551.3070109(a)cox.net
From: Kevin Ross on 24 Apr 2010 22:50
On 4/24/2010 10:53 AM, B. Alexander wrote: > Hi, > > I have a question on filesystems. Back in the day, I started using > reiser3. It was faster than ext3, and it could be extended without > umounting the filesystem (which has since been fixed in ext3), plus, > unlike any filesystem I have encountered, it could be reduced in size. > > Well, now reiser3 is very long in the tooth, reiser4 will probably > never go anywhere, so I'm wondering what filesystems are recommended. > Last I heard, ext4 is stablizing, but it had problems with filesystem > corruption, though that was mid-fall last year, IIRC. > > So now, I would like to slowly start replacing my reiser3 partitions > with...something else. There are two options, the old standards, e.g. > ext3/4, xfs, etc, and then there are a slew of new filesystems, such > as nilfs2, btrfs and exofs. > > I'm talking about a range of machines, from workstations to servers to > NFS and storage servers with multi-terabyte disks, and a backup server > with several hundred gigs of backups. > > Does anyone have suggestions and practical experience with the pros > and cons of the various filesystems? > > Thanks, > --b If file integrity are important to you, look for a FS that keeps checksums of individual files. Otherwise, if a file becomes corrupted, you'll never know it, unless you keep your own checksums. There are only a small handful of filesystems that keep checksums of your files. Btrfs and ZFS come to mind. I believe ZFS is more mature than Btrfs, but it isn't in the kernel. I believe the only way to get ZFS on Linux is through FUSE. There's also JFS, which has been around for a number of years, and is mature. It doesn't checksum your files, but it does use copy-on-write (as do Btrfs and ZFS), which goes a long way to keeping your data from getting corrupted, something XFS does not do. So if Btrfs were more mature, or if ZFS were included in the kernel, I'd recommend either of those. But as it is, I think JFS is the way to go. -- Kevin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST(a)lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster(a)lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4BD3AD1B.70001(a)familyross.net |