On Mon, 3 Dec 2001, Paul Lussier wrote: > ext3 is reportedly pretty stable. It has the andvantage of being able > to be seen as ext2 in case you need to re-install with something that > doesn't support ext3. I don't know how it performs, though, since I > really haven't done much with it.
My understanding is that ext3 performance is almost identical to ext2. The only thing ext3 adds is a journal, which is stored as a special inode in (i.e., like a file). So unless you have something which interacts badly with the journal algorithms, it should act just like ext2 -- because it is just like ext2. :) > - The cons [for XFS] are ... Also: - Relatively new filesystem for Linux - 2.4 kernel only - Can only grow (not shrink) the filesystem > - You could be SOL if you need to re-install without an XFS enabled > kernel. That applies to pretty much any filesystem, so it isn't really a point against XFS per se. > ReiserFS, well, I'm personally skeptical. I have no experience with it > at all, so I can't speak about it's merits or drawbacks. ReiserFS has been in use by SuSE in their distro for years, and is considered fairly solid and mature under Linux. I know SourceForge is (was?) using ReiserFS for their several-hundred-gigabyte download server. ReiserFS is the only one of the many journaling filesystems for Linux in the so-called "stable" kernel. It is one of the few with patches available for the 2.2 series. As far as the filesystem design goes, ReiserFS has some unique features, and offers performance wins for many cases. The most common pathological case (many small appends to many small files) can be eliminated by mounting with the "notail" option. ReiserFS can be grown while online (mounted R/W), and can be shrunk if you unmount it first. We have been using it for a little while now with one of our customers. They have a 543 gigabyte filesystem which has been working quite well. Definitely faster than ext2 for their application. > Though, reportedly, they do have a pretty decent community which I'm > sure is quite helpful. Yes, and actually, NameSys has four or five people available to answer the phone, not just Hans Reiser. ;-) I believe support is $25 US per hour, one hour minimum. Their mailing list is not bad. Their developers are fairly responsive. The biggest complaint I have is that the userland tools and documentation are a little unpolished. They do the job, but the user experience is a little harsh. Aside from the usual problem of "kernel hackers can't design UIs or write docs", I believe English is a second language for all the ReiserFS hackers. (Then again, I'm sure their English is better than my Russian.) -- Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not | | necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or | | organization. All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | ***************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *****************************************************************
