All existing fs benchmarks compared, new benchmarks.

[dE_logics]

I've taken a fs benchmark form t2 magazine compared how much %slow are other filesystems to the fastest of the lot.

http://review.webasyst.net/DD/2.0/file_link.php?sl=8c8924a59f762a1f02484175a07b9a48&DB_KEY=RFYzMDMy

The first mount time will determine how fast will the system boot.
Here, it's a good idea to keep away from xfs and reiserfs here, while ext2,3,4, jfs, btrfs and xfs pose almost no difference.

Creating many small files should have been fastest for reiserfs but ext3 is the fastest in this and reiserfs is just 8.73% slower. ext2,4 is VERY slow at this.

There's a tie up between ext2 and reiserfs when it comes to searching for files. jfs and xfs are only 8,33% slow.

When it comes to removing files, ext2, ext4 is the fastest. All others are VERY slow at this. Ext3 comes second fastest and reiser is the third.

Creating directories recursively is done fastest by reiser and others are considerably slow. Second is btrfs with ext2 again being VERY slow

Finding directories is done fastest by and jfs but reiserfs is one of the slowest in this trailing by ~56%

ext4 is the fastest in removing files ext2 is almost equally fast, reiser comes third but other are very much slower than reiser also.

If you're looking forward towards fast boot times, then reiserfs is sure to reduce your boot times by a complete second or more.

When it comes to creating (or copying) small files, reiserfs is marginally slower than ext3.

Searching for files is done best by ext2, ext4 and reiserfs with ext3 58.33% slower.

Till now I conclude reiserfs has the top hand since, while creating files it was only 8% slower than the fastest (ext3), but when searching for files, ext3 is a 58% slower than reiser.

Removing all the files and directries is done best by ext2 and ext4 but ext3 is very slow at this by 211% but reiser is worst at 567.68%

It appears right now ext3 has the upper hand since the loss of creating many small files in a reasonable time was hard for ext3 and easy for reiser but removing them is much more harder for reiser.

In a test for creating directries reccursively, reiserfs again comes on top and the second roundup is ext3 which is a whooping 381.58% slower

Reiserfs again comes on top by quiet a lot of margin.
Finding directories is done best by ext2 and jfs but reiser is slower by 55.88% and ext3 by 37.82%

Reiserfs will be again be considered at top here since it's not that much slow than ext3 than in the test before this one. notice, ext2 lost major on creating files and creating directories recursively, but still it will come third.

ext2 and ext4 removed the directories in one of the fastest ways, resier comes second with 136.19% slow but ext3 is too slow at 483.74%

To top it off at handling small files, reiserfs comes on top with (IMO) a reasonable margin, ext3 will be second and ext4 coming third. Problem with ext2 is that whenever ext2 preformed well ext4 also did and many a times bit better better, but in a few cases ext4 was a bit slower.

Now let's analyze which FS is the best for desktop purposes when it comes to handle small files.

Desktop purpose include collection of pictures, lots of songs, documents and may be source codes.

Creating these sort of files do not require that much of speed since it most probably done by a much slower medium than the HDD like a thumbdrive, a CD/DVD, or the Internet. Most external HDD are slow, if it's using USB its stuck at 30 MB/s and very rarely we see firewire but esata is very common.

Whatever might the above medium be, searching for files is done much more often then creating them...even for the OS, thus we will see both the file operations done here...for directories and files. ext2 and ext4, reiser were the best reiser lost out at searching for directories, yet ext2 was still the fastest and ext4 came second.
Thus searching is done best by ext2, but I would prefer ext4 since it's a journel fs and ext2 is too old!

However the system fs also includes creating and deleting lots of files, and directories and ext 2 and 4 are too slow for this purpose, but resier is not that much slow when it comes to deleting files and folders. So I would suggest reiserfs as the system partitions.

However real world tests (for example untarring the linux kernel is done best by ext2 and ext4 and reiser is 81.55% slower.

Ext4 was the fastest when it comes to tarring and removing was also done best by ext4.

Thus the real world test reflect ext4 as the best fs for small files.

Thus finally I would recommend ext4 as the best of the lot for the system although in the (sort of) synthetic benchmarks, reiser was the leader.

Very weird. However Test conducted by me showed a very different picture -

Copy the documents folder -
ext4
time cp -R /mnt/docs_pics/docs /media/disk/
real 4m21.494s
user 0m0.398s
sys 0m12.782s

reiserfs
time cp -R /mnt/docs_pics/docs /media/disk/
real 4m42.315s
user 0m0.448s
sys 0m23.213s

jfs
time cp -R /mnt/docs_pics/docs /media/disk/
real 9m52.282s
user 0m0.441s
sys 0m12.666s

xfs
time cp -R /mnt/docs_pics/docs /media/disk/
real 5m27.249s
user 0m0.467s
sys 0m13.911s
Copy the Pictures folder

reiser
time cp -R /mnt/docs_pics/pics/ /media/disk/
real 7m27.843s
user 0m0.615s
sys 0m31.514s

ext4
time cp -R /mnt/docs_pics/pics/ /media/disk/
real 10m52.788s
user 0m0.571s
sys 0m19.490s

xfs
time cp -R /mnt/docs_pics/pics/ /media/disk/
real 10m0.357s
user 0m0.566s
sys 0m20.426s

jfs
time cp -R /mnt/docs_pics/pics/ /media/disk/
real 14m29.539s
user 0m0.534s
sys 0m19.293s

Copy a large file

reiser
time cp /mnt/game/temp\(game\)/ubuntu-9.10-desktop-amd64.iso /media/disk/
real 2m27.996s
user 0m0.024s
sys 0m12.666s

xfs
time cp /mnt/game/temp\(game\)/ubuntu-9.10-desktop-amd64.iso /media/disk/
real 2m17.934s
user 0m0.025s
sys 0m6.450s

jfs
time cp /mnt/game/temp\(game\)/ubuntu-9.10-desktop-amd64.iso /media/disk/
real 2m14.946s
user 0m0.031s
sys 0m5.807s

ext4
time cp /mnt/game/temp\(game\)/ubuntu-9.10-desktop-amd64.iso /media/disk/
real 2m15.662s
user 0m0.025s
sys 0m6.684s

Copy the /usr/lib64 directory -

reiser
time cp -R /usr/lib64/ /media/disk/
real 11m15.395s
user 0m0.704s
sys 0m46.371s

xfs
time cp -R /usr/lib64/ /media/disk/
Permission denied
real 12m7.840s
user 0m0.856s
sys 0m27.861s

jfs
time cp -R /usr/lib64/ /media/disk/
real 19m50.976s
user 0m0.708s
sys 0m25.778s

ext4
time cp -R /usr/lib64/ /media/disk/
real 11m9.273s
user 0m0.621s
sys 0m26.466s

Remove the lib64 directory -

reiserfs
time rm -R --force /media/disk/*
real 0m13.139s
user 0m0.037s
sys 0m12.931s

xfs
time rm -R --force /media/disk/*
real 1m17.155s
user 0m0.144s
sys 0m13.969s

jfs
time rm -R --force /media/disk/*
real 5m31.996s
user 0m0.102s
sys 0m6.403s

ext4
time rm -R --force /media/disk/*
real 0m3.113s
user 0m0.045s
sys 0m2.598s



Surprisingly, jfs seems to be good at handling large files and xfs seem well rounded off... doing everything in a reasonably fast way.

I don't know why but the pictures (~20,000) got copied pretty fast in reiser; but in the docs folder, reiser showed a bit of a slowdown, but still it's good and a safe bet I would say.

I would highly discourage jfs though.
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[psycho]

i agree that ext4 is starting to look like the best default choice for a general purpose filesystem. i'm about to convert all my ext2 and ext3 partitions to ext4 on one of my systems: i will time some disk i/o stuff and see if there are any significant differences.

apparently just changing the 2 or 3 to 4 in fstab is enough to have existing ext2/ext3 partitions mounted as ext4 and even enjoy some of the performance improvements (assuming ext4 support in the kernel, of course). conversion via tune2fs is permanent however, so i'm going to do a little testing before making changes that would take hours to undo (some of these partitions are hundreds of gigs).

[dE_logics]

Actually I did some more personal test and according to that reiserfs and xfs lead, where as jfs is (still) the worst of all fs.

I suggest using reiserfs with noatime and notail option (this almost doubles the performance, previously I had not set this, as a result reiser was slow). It has fabulous search times.

I'll post the results.
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[psycho]

hmmm. if reiserfs is so good (and i've often seen it praised in these and other forums), why do the major distributions so rarely select it as their default fs? are there downsides offsetting its great performance, or is its great performance disputed, or do large distros just not like using file systems named after people serving 15-to-life?

[richard.scott]

is reiserfs still in active development given its creators situation?

[psycho]

last i heard, yes, others are still working on it

[dE_logics]

It's said that reiserfs gets fragmented slightly, although I haven't experienced any major fragmentation. Also it has high CPU usage and pagefault... this could be the reason.

Anyway, I would give speed a higher preference than CPU usage.

The previous namesys developers (who are still working on reiser4) say they'll try to bring reiser4 in the mainstream kernel by 2.6.36.
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[dE_logics]

http://review.webasyst.net/DD/2.0/file_link.php?sl=0f4a4ef720dbec645c095bbb90b91862&DB_KEY=RFYzMDMy

http://review.webasyst.net/DD/2.0/file_link.php?sl=d19ae9af132a7634979a0c0e0355a860&DB_KEY=RFYzMDMy
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