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syadnom
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Joined: 09 May 2002
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 Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 2:25 am Post subject: The right filesystem for the right files??? |
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i have noticed a lot of people claiming that a certain file system is better for this or that. for instance i have read that people consider reiserfs the best for small files but some dont really trust it for this root filesystem.....and XFS is better for larger files...and ext3 is just all around good..
anyone have any good comments about this? about which filesystem is best for what and why that is so?...
also, has anyone experimented with using multiple file systems for certian system directories? for instance:
/usr/portage should be the FS with the fastest small file access speed because the portage system has so many small files...
and /usr/src/ should be similar because of the many many files in the kernel source,
but /home could be XFS or ext3 because people download larger items(multiple megabyte) often..
gimme your thoughts and your preferences on this...
right now i run the following:
/home is XFS
/usr is ReaserFS
/boot is ext3
i have a suse install on another partition:
/suse (hda3) is ext3 becuase suse8 prefered it and i wasn't willing to argue
i also have:
/network/samba and
/network/nfs for network drives
and /fat32 which is...duh - fat32/vfat |
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tomte
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 08 May 2002
Posts: 122
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| Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 2:38 am Post subject: |
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ext3 is stable (AFAIK) but slow compared to every other journaling file system; xfs as well as jfs didn't work with my kernel config (xfs lost data, jfs usage resulted in kernel panics) I'm happy with reiserfs now. using it on every machine (regardless of the distro used) since well over two years without problems, just gave the others a try after installing gentoo.
the problems may well arise out of uncommon kernel configurations, that are nevertheless needed to get all hardware to work with high-memory support and the preemption-patch enabled 
regards,
tom |
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fghellar
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Joined: 10 Apr 2002
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Location: Porto Alegre, BR
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| Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 4:14 am Post subject: |
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You may be interested in the "Advanced filesystem implementor's guide", by Daniel Robbins. Check the Articles section at gentoo.org.
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AutoBot
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| Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 6:15 am Post subject: |
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I have used ReiserFS, ext3, and XFS on gentoo and for all purposes I like XFS but unfortunately it causes the kernel to have somewhat more bulk (200Kb+) and doesn't function properly with preempt enabled (usually).
ReiserFS has been good to me so far, is light on the kernel, and is fast for most things.
Ext3 is slow, I have had corruption (gentoo recue disk saves the day), and once I lost my journal for no apparent reason.
Note: When I talk about bulk, it isn't because of ram but because my kernel needs to fit on a bootdisk along with syslinux. I'm sure some will disagree with what I said and that is ok, one was just giving output on ones experience with journaling filesystems.
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syadnom
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| Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 7:32 am Post subject: ........... |
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ok, so XFS is not really good with pre-emptive kernel
and ext3 is slower than grandma
ReiserFS is good but in other forums i have read about some issues with it and the 2.4.19 kernels
note: ihave not had any issues with XFS and pre-emptive kernel that i know of, i dont think i have had any dataloss.. |
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AutoBot
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| Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 8:59 am Post subject: |
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Lol, IMHO thats about it 
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klieber
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Joined: 17 Apr 2002
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Location: San Francisco, CA
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| Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 12:12 pm Post subject: |
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Ask six different linux users what file types you should use and you'll get six different answers. A lot of it is very subjective and dependent on your particular needs. (i.e. speed vs. stability vs. simplicity)
Try them all out -- see which one floats your boat the best.
--kurt
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pjp
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| Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 6:25 pm Post subject: |
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On a day to day use system for ordinary tasks, is speed a noticeable issue?
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klieber
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| Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 6:30 pm Post subject: |
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I would say no. I use ext3 for all my stuff. I've tried reiser and XFS, but I always come back to ext3 simply because it's easier and I don't notice all that big of a speed difference.
Now, after I post this, about 419 other people are going to post about how XFS made their this much faster and reiserfs made their system that much faster, so again, it's all a very subjective thing that depends on your particular needs.
--kurt
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syadnom
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Joined: 09 May 2002
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| Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 7:04 pm Post subject: my issues are... |
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| im most interested in which file system to put which type of files on. i know fat32 and ext2 are horribly slow for putting mp3s on. as in it take longer to ls a directory or find a file on them. and im also interested in improving response time of the file system for certain tasks, |
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klieber
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| Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 7:17 pm Post subject: Re: ........... |
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| syadnom wrote: | | and ext3 is slower than grandma |
This is simply not true.
--kurt
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syadnom
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| Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 8:55 pm Post subject: ... |
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i can feel a noticable difference when using ext2 or 3. in fact a google search showed my that ext2 and 3 have to noticable performance difference as ext3 is just ext2 with a journal. but i dont feel that this is a problem for some directories like /boot....which doesnt need to be blazing fast as it just has a couple config files and the kernel... but my /usr/portage directory needs to be faster so that emerge doesnt take so dang long to write files to..
why is their not a good database file system?? is it possible to mount a database as a directory?
so a search would just look in the database index which is very small and searches would be REALLY fast, small file access can be amazingly fast in some SQL benchmarks..
how about something like
/boot is a real ext3 partition
/root is a real reiserfs partition
but /lib /home /usr are all just a mounted database?
how good is the support for the BFS(be file system)? which is a fairly fast databased file system, of cource a file system tools package would need included because most of the file services in beos were managed by tracker... |
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syadnom
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| Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 8:56 pm Post subject: .. |
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BFS should have been BeFS, and i notice that it is in experimental stages and doesnt include any of the advanced features...  |
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pjp
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Joined: 16 Apr 2002
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| Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 9:03 pm Post subject: |
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| klieber wrote: | I would say no. I use ext3 for all my stuff. I've tried reiser and XFS, but I always come back to ext3 simply because it's easier and I don't notice all that big of a speed difference.
Now, after I post this, about 419 other people are going to post about how XFS made their this much faster and reiserfs made their system that much faster, so again, it's all a very subjective thing that depends on your particular needs.
--kurt |
I was mainly just curious. I'm using ext3 and don't expect to change (if for no other
reason than I'm lazy). I'm more concerned with stability than a second or two faster response time.
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AutoBot
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| Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 9:35 pm Post subject: |
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Really the matter of ReiserFS and XFS being faster than ext3 isn't subjective, it is a proven fact with benchmarks and documentation.
You can find a really good read on filesystems here:
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-fs7/?open&t=grl
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pjp
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| Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 9:42 pm Post subject: |
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I don't think anyone was disputing benchmarks, but rather it didn't "feel" faster.
What you do with the fs is probably the most important factor.
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AutoBot
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| Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 9:48 pm Post subject: |
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Ahh I understand that, was just throwing some wood in the fire so to speak.
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mksoft
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| Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2002 10:03 pm Post subject: |
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Those using ext3 (I use XFS) they can enhance the fs performance by telling it to journal only metadata and not the data itself (as XFS and reiser do it).
The default option is to journal both which is safer but hurts performance. You can refer to LinuxToday article describing ext3. Check the speed section.
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fghellar
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| Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2002 4:00 am Post subject: |
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The default for ext3 is metadata journaling only (data=ordered mode). I personally use metadata and data journaling (data=journal mode), and am pretty satisfied...
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mksoft
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| Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2002 7:04 am Post subject: |
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I meant use data=writeback. From RedHat whitepaper :
| Quote: | | One mode, data=writeback, limits the data integrity guarantees, allowing old data to show up in files after a crash, for a potential increase in speed under some circumstances. (This mode, which is the default journaling mode for most journaling file systems, essentially provides the more limited data integrity guarantees of the ext2 file system and merely avoids the long file system check at boot time.) |
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DArtagnan
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| Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2002 7:14 am Post subject: |
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| mksoft wrote: | | I meant use data=writeback. |
How to use it?
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mksoft
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| Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2002 8:03 am Post subject: |
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| pacman wrote: | | How to use it? |
You should've read the document I've refered to
| Quote: | | To change the mode, add the data=something option to the mount options for that file system in the /etc/fstab file, as documented in the mount man page (man mount). |
Just make sure you don't have many power outages before switching to it 
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DArtagnan
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| Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2002 8:08 am Post subject: |
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| mksoft wrote: | | pacman wrote: | | How to use it? |
You should've read the document I've refered to
| Quote: | | To change the mode, add the data=something option to the mount options for that file system in the /etc/fstab file, as documented in the mount man page (man mount). |
Just make sure you don't have many power outages before switching to it |
I read it but there they don't say HOW and WHERE to use it...maybe i did not say the line about it, sorry.
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mksoft
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| Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2002 8:24 am Post subject: |
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| pacman wrote: | | I read it but there they don't say HOW and WHERE to use it...maybe i did not say the line about it, sorry. |
in /etc/fstab you have columns. The 4th column is the options column, and it should be added there.
For exmaple:
| Code: | | /dev/hda3 /home ext3 noatime,data=writeback 0 0 |
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AutoBot
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| Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2002 9:33 am Post subject: |
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I would just run ext2 instead of trying to make ext3 run faster at the cost of security.
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