[plug] Drive Overlays and Linux.

[Shannon Carver]

Now, if only I could "digg" up that article I found with synthetic and real
work benchmarks for all the filesystems.

I'll have a search tonight.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: plug-bounces at plug.org.au [mailto:plug-bounces at plug.org.au] On Behalf
> Of Lance Duivenbode
> Sent: Wednesday, 4 October 2006 3:45 PM
> To: plug at plug.org.au
> Subject: Re: [plug] Drive Overlays and Linux.
> 
> I tend to agree with you Shannon - if you've got something mission
> critical
> you can't beat ext2/ext3 for performance and reliability.
> 
> I have had a few problems with ReiserFS though so I have tended to stay
> away
> from it in the last few years (since I stopped using Mandrake around the
> 8.x
> series). It caused me no end of grief when it corrupted a few semester
> long
> assignments I'd been working on - the week before they were due! Lucky I
> had
> backups! That said, the company where I work has used ReiserFS for years
> with
> no problems. Go figure....
> 
> On a lighter note, I've used XFS for the past few years and have been
> greatly
> impressed with it's performance - particularly with large movies and data
> files. I've found deletion and fsck'ing to be the fastest of all the file
> systems I've tried. As long as you remember to include XFS support in your
> boot/rescue discs you'll have no problems ;)
> 
> Lance
> 
> On Wed, 4 Oct 2006 03:27 pm, Shannon Carver wrote:
> > Heh, the filesystem Debate!
> >
> > In the past I've stuck this rule:
> >
> > Mission Critical (Routers/Firewalls or boxes that aren't storing/moving
> a
> > lot of data)/Boot Partitions: ext2/ext3
> > Desktop/Laptop/Mass Storage: ReiserFS
> >
> > I've recently been doing some reading on XFS though, which apparently is
> > fantastic for large files/movies/videos, and have heard success stories
> > from people running reiserfs for OS/Programs/Small files storage and XFS
> > for large storage spread across different partitions and disks.
> >
> > It's all personal choice really though, many distro's default to
> reiserFS
> > as opposed to ext2/3 as they used to so its probably just best to try a
> few
> > and see what suits you.
> >
> > I'm not sure of the name of the Sun (???), might have been JFS?  Someone
> > was raving about it recently on the Plug list, and from what I can
> remember
> > it was a step in the database filesystem direction (What WinFS was
> supposed
> > to be).
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: plug-bounces at plug.org.au [mailto:plug-bounces at plug.org.au] On
> > > Behalf Of Patrick Coleman
> > > Sent: Wednesday, 4 October 2006 2:49 PM
> > > To: plug at plug.org.au
> > > Subject: Re: [plug] Drive Overlays and Linux.
> > >
> > > On 10/4/06, Lee Jamieson <leejam at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > <snip>
> > >
> > > > Another question, would it be a good idea to format this drive as a
> > > > FAT32 or ext2/3 or even something else?
> > > >
> > > > I understand that the network protocol - Samba - takes care of
> > > > translating from NTFS to whatever (although I don't know how), so
> > > > that's not a problem.  I want to squeeze the last drop of space from
> > > > this drive, so formatting it to something that'll make rocks bleed
> :)
> > > > is good.
> > >
> > > Firstly, I'd stay well clear of FAT32 and NTFS if you're going to be
> > > using the drive exclusively in a linux system. FAT32 is pretty
> > > innefficient with regard to space, not sure about NTFS but its been
> > > reverse-engineered so its not going to be ideal.
> > >
> > > Reiserfs is generally considered faster than ext3, but it takes
> > > considerably longer to mount (though this may not be a problem for
> > > you). It does have fast fsck and deletion times (apparently). There
> > > have been some rumors regarding silent data corruption on slightly
> > > flakey hardware, but hey, its fast! :)
> > >
> > > ext3 is pretty rock solid, ext2 even more so, but the tradeoff is
> > > speed (especially with ext2). I've also heard good things about XFS,
> > > but I've never tried it.
> > >
> > > I'm not sure which is the most efficient with regard to space (it
> > > would be neat to see some benchmarks of say a 200GB drive formatted
> > > with the different filesystems); I suspect it also depends on the
> > > block size specified when you create the filesystem and how you use it
> > > (ie. lots of tiny files or a few large files).
> > >
> > > Personally, I use reiserfs for everything, bar the one server where
> > > reiserfs decided it didn't like the data and corrupted a few
> > > (important) files. That one has ext3.
> > >
> > > I'd be interested in hearing what other people have to say.
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > >
> > > Patrick
> > >
> > > --
> > > http://www.labyrinthdata.net.au
> > > _______________________________________________
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> >
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