SuSE 8.2 -- What is the best file system?
Hi List, I recently pre-ordered a copy of SuSE 8.2 Professional CD/DVD set from the suse web site. I read the specs on SuSE 8.2 off the web site and saw that SuSE now lets you chose another filesystem type; called XFS. I currently use Red Hat 7.3 at home and use ext2 for /boot partition and ext3 for /, /usr, /home partitions on my first hard drive (hda). I know the main difference between ext2 and ext3 is that ext3 has journaling capability while ext2 does not. Red Hat doesn't give you a choice at installation using its anaconda program of formating a drive with anything other then ext2, ext3 or swap. When recompiling the 2.4.x kernel I noticed that there is a option to load the reiserfs driver into the kernel at boot time. So does anyone on this list have experience using the other file system types that SuSE offers out of the box? And if so, can you please elaborate which is the "best" to use? There are quite a few from what I gather like ext2, ext3, JFS, XFS, Reiser FS. I just use the pc at home as a workstation, not a server. Thanks in advance, ~~Nick _______________________________________________ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web!
I miss suse!!! now that I HAVE to use this SSSSHHH of redhat !!!!! suse is along with mandrake the best distro!!!!
Redhat is not too bad. I don't like the Redhat tools that are not really impressive. But the system is not too bad. At work we currently use Redhat, SuSE and Mandrake and as far as I know Redhat is the only one supported by a large end of big companies. But I have to say that Redhat is also the only one that brought pbs when Installing a Digital Camera or even a simple game like Quake 3 ;) According to us, SuSE is really suited to WorksTations and small server like Web or files server, Redhat is more suited to medium and big servers, this disto is not a Workstation or Desktop distro awongxi wrote:
I miss suse!!! now that I HAVE to use this SSSSHHH of redhat !!!!! suse is along with mandrake the best distro!!!!
arnaud kubacki wrote: ...
According to us, SuSE is really suited to WorksTations and small server like Web or files server, Redhat is more suited to medium and big servers, this disto is not a Workstation or Desktop distro ...
Suse currently holds the - although inofficial (for a few more weeks at least) - speed record with oracle. 32GB ram server, 3 tiers, apps 11i benchmark. SuSE has always cared a lot about big hardware. suse leads on s/390/zSeries. suse got the 32 cpu alpha based wildfire up a few years ago. If I should ever leave suse to do my own business, on big machines I'll ONLY use suse kernels regardless of what distribution I might end up using. I do a lot of oracle stuff for suse, so I know all the things we do on the kernel side... just a comment - without any proofs, so take it as an opinion. michael
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On April 13, 2003 09:22 am, Nicholas Parsons wrote:
So does anyone on this list have experience using the other file system types that SuSE offers out of the box? And if so, can you please elaborate which is the "best" to use?
Decide for youself after reading this series of articles on journaling FS for Linux: http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-fs.html with links at the bottom to the other parts. The link to part 7 on ext3 is located at: http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-fs7/ Basically, it boils down to: (1) Speed and saving of disk space when you have lots of small files: ReiserFS (2) Data integrity and compatibility with existing tools designed for ext2 : ext3 (3) Video streaming server and systems with very large files: XFS. I myself use ext3 for all partitions. YMMV Charles - -- "Linux, because up-time matters gawk; talk; date; wine; grep; touch; unzip; touch; gasp; finger; gasp; mount;\ fsck; more; yes; gasp; umount; make clean; make mrproper; sleep." - --Drunken Bastard -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE+mXE/3epPyyKbwPYRAgIAAJsGhUFzskNVzpJCcfvLwjc534cUcwCgpUNT ts9NzCaBv2x76WpEDyVE14c= =aPgt -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Sunday 13 April 2003 10:16 am, Charles Philip Chan wrote:
On April 13, 2003 09:22 am, Nicholas Parsons wrote:
So does anyone on this list have experience using the other file system types that SuSE offers out of the box? And if so, can you please elaborate which is the "best" to use?
Decide for youself after reading this series of articles on journaling FS for Linux:
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-fs.html
with links at the bottom to the other parts. The link to part 7 on ext3 is located at:
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-fs7/
Basically, it boils down to:
(1) Speed and saving of disk space when you have lots of small files: ReiserFS
(2) Data integrity and compatibility with existing tools designed for ext2 : ext3
(3) Video streaming server and systems with very large files: XFS.
I myself use ext3 for all partitions. YMMV
Charles
One advantage of XFS is that it comes with an extensive set of additional 'tools' such as a program that will expand an XFS fs dynamically.
From another list:
One thing people seem to forget is the fact that XFS has a *lot* of user space tools that ext3, reiser, jfs and others don't, such as: xfs_growfs which will resize a partition on the fly xfs_admin for labeling and renaming xfs_check for error filesystem and inode correction xfs_freeze to freeze a filesystem for snapshots xfs_fsr to reallocate or defragment a filesystem xfs_bmap to print block mapping for an XFS filesystem xfs_db to debug an XFS filesystem xfs_logprint to print the log of an XFS filesystem xfsdump to back up a filesystem xfsrestore to restore a filesystem None of the other journalling filesystems are close to being as "full-featured" and rely on external programs to perform these functions. I prefer tools native to the filesystem rather than the os or third party. -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + Bruce S. Marshall bmarsh@bmarsh.com Bellaire, MI 04/13/03 10:34 + +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "What's a thousand dollars? mere chicken feed. A `poultry' matter." - Groucho Marx
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On April 13, 2003 10:37 am, Bruce Marshall wrote:
One advantage of XFS is that it comes with an extensive set of additional 'tools' such as a program that will expand an XFS fs dynamically.
Thanks for the info.
None of the other journalling filesystems are close to being as "full-featured" and rely on external programs to perform these functions. I prefer tools native to the filesystem rather than the os or third party.
I wouldn't call fsck and reiserfsck "third party tools". Each FS has its strength and weaknesses and should be chosen according to the purpose of the system. Charles - -- "Linux, because up-time matters gawk; talk; date; wine; grep; touch; unzip; touch; gasp; finger; gasp; mount;\ fsck; more; yes; gasp; umount; make clean; make mrproper; sleep." - --Drunken Bastard -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE+mXpY3epPyyKbwPYRAhEVAJ9dGwSAUgRglMhR7c+uUe2H/CJUggCfUwk8 BQi5sy3UM1IB82TFZOjj2oU= =sdNx -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Sunday 13 April 2003 09:37, Bruce Marshall wrote:
One advantage of XFS is that it comes with an extensive set of additional 'tools' such as a program that will expand an XFS fs dynamically.
<snip>
None of the other journalling filesystems are close to being as "full-featured" and rely on external programs to perform these functions. I prefer tools native to the filesystem rather than the os or third party.
I remember "wowing" over the possibilty of using XFS on Linux 2 or 3 years ago when I first read it was being ported (I've always been an SGI freak), but RieserFS "got here first" for me, and I've been happily using RieserFS since the first version of SuSE that came with it (7.2 maybe, can't remember). I hear complaints about it once in a while but I've used it on several dozen computers, including some pretty loaded apache & mysql servers, with never a problem. Thinking about trying XFS again though, and I'm wondering: it always gets good ratings for large files. But is there anything *bad* about using it on smaller files (think a personal system or LAN server with typical office documents)? -- ---------------------------------------------------- Jonathan Wilson Cedar Creek Software http://www.cedarcreeksoftware.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On April 14, 2003 02:59 am, JW wrote:
Thinking about trying XFS again though, and I'm wondering: it always gets good ratings for large files. But is there anything *bad* about using it on smaller files (think a personal system or LAN server with typical office documents)?
I haven't tried it, so I can't answer from personal experience, but according to this article: http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-fs9.html it works well. Charles - -- "Linux, because up-time matters gawk; talk; date; wine; grep; touch; unzip; touch; gasp; finger; gasp; mount;\ fsck; more; yes; gasp; umount; make clean; make mrproper; sleep." - --Drunken Bastard -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE+myqB3epPyyKbwPYRAgapAKCL1zbfH9lx7ZXpcGijAKHl7yutGACfZMeo +dTNMZCz1F/ffJW5aPYF3Gw= =zvDq -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Yo, I may be really late/unofficial here - but I can confidently say that with XFS on Linux, I have had better speed for my home PC, compared to reiserfs. Startup/shutdown times have reduced drastically and overall performance of the machine is so much better for the same distro. hint - it is not all that a good idea to mix filesystems as a hunch, for two heavily loaded partitions. I mean, it would not be a good idea to format /usr with reiserfs but /usr/local with xfs. Both are frequently used partitions [if you have the partitioning as I have done it for myself], but two different drivers at the same time.. would hit performance. Comments from gurus? Rohit ********************************************************* Disclaimer This message (including any attachments) contains confidential information intended for a specific individual and purpose, and is protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, you should delete this message and are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, or distribution of this message, or the taking of any action based on it, is strictly prohibited. ********************************************************* Visit us at http://www.mahindrabt.com
On April 13, 2003 09:22 am, Nicholas Parsons wrote:
So does anyone on this list have experience using the other file system types that SuSE offers out of the box? And if so, can you please elaborate which is the "best" to use?
Decide for youself after reading this series of articles on journaling FS for Linux:
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-fs.html
with links at the bottom to the other parts. The link to part 7 on ext3 is located at:
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-fs7/
Basically, it boils down to:
(1) Speed and saving of disk space when you have lots of small files: ReiserFS
In my benchmarks, XFS has almost the same performance, and in my experience, ReiserFS uses more RAM (if you use something like vmware, ReiserFS might be slower for that reason).
(2) Data integrity and compatibility with existing tools designed for ext2 : ext3
(3) Video streaming server and systems with very large files: XFS.
If you use quota, XFS should be the choice as it does not need the quotacheck, like ReiserFS and Ext3 do. Praise
On Sunday 13 April 2003 9:22 am, Nicholas Parsons wrote:
Hi List,
I recently pre-ordered a copy of SuSE 8.2 Professional CD/DVD set from the suse web site. I read the specs on SuSE 8.2 off the web site and saw that SuSE now lets you chose another filesystem type; called XFS. I currently use Red Hat 7.3 at home and use ext2 for /boot partition and ext3 for /, /usr, /home partitions on my first hard drive (hda).
I know the main difference between ext2 and ext3 is that ext3 has journaling capability while ext2 does not. Red Hat doesn't give you a choice at installation using its anaconda program of formating a drive with anything other then ext2, ext3 or swap. When recompiling the 2.4.x kernel I noticed that there is a option to load the reiserfs driver into the kernel at boot time.
So does anyone on this list have experience using the other file system types that SuSE offers out of the box? And if so, can you please elaborate which is the "best" to use? There are quite a few from what I gather like ext2, ext3, JFS, XFS, Reiser FS.
I just use the pc at home as a workstation, not a server.
Thanks in advance, ~~Nick
I've been using XFS on 8.0 for quite some time now and like it. Have used ext3 under 7.3 and 8.0 and had some problems moving from release to release with it. 8.0 wouldn't recognize an ext3 partition that 7.3 was using without problems. Here's a post on another forum that might prove interesting to you: ====================================================================
Last week there was a thread on the Linux kernel mailng list comparing XFS, reiserFS & ext3: http://kt.zork.net/kernel-traffic/latest.html#13
looks like ext3 came in last, resierFS first, XFS in the middle.
<shameless plug>
Linux on XFS is now our standard deployment model, replacing RS/6000
hardware and AIX operating systems. Ext3 just couldn't cut it in the
stability tests, and was way behind in performance and features.
Here's another interesting read from Andrew Klaassen to the XFS list.
(ReiserFS not included in this one)
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: XFS vs. ext3
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2003 23:43:30 -0500
From: Andrew Klaassen
So does anyone on this list have experience using the other file system types that SuSE offers out of the box? And if so, can you please elaborate which is the "best" to use? There are quite a few from what I gather like ext2, ext3, JFS, XFS, Reiser FS.
I just use the pc at home as a workstation, not a server.
You could start a massive debate with this, but given that last sentence quoted above, here's the bottom line: It doesn't really matter. Honestly. People will jump up and down yelling how one filesystem is better than another in such and such a situation, and others will jump higher and yell louder about how those people are wrong. Yeah yeah. For someone using a home PC, with one or twos disks, for general purpose stuff, it would be nigh on impossible to tell the difference between modern filesystems. Pick a mainstream, mature jouralling one - SuSE support and favour ReiserFS - and you'll have decent tools and meta-data protection in case of failure. That's all you need. -- "...our desktop is falling behind stability-wise and feature wise to KDE ...when I went to Mexico in December to the facility where we launched gnome, they had all switched to KDE3." - Miguel de Icaza, March 2003
Just to reiterate a bit on what has been posted previously.
We switched to ext3 on the blu.org server because we could do that on
the fly to an existing file system. But, I converted to Reiserfs on my
personal systems. And XFS is also an excellent file system.
IMHO: For home or standalone use on SuSE, I would probably say that
Reiserfs is probably a decent choice. In a commercial environment, you
probably want do some research based on file system use as well as what
other systems are in use at the installation. Run some benchmarks if you
can.
I have a large hard disk that I use for backups. Since I frequently
mount and unmount file systems on that disk, fscks with a non-journal
file system would take a long time, or I would have to turn off the max
mount. But, if for some reason my system crashed white the backup file
systems were mounted, then the fsck would take forever. With a
journalling file system, such as Reiserfs, the recovery is very fast.
--
Jerry Feldman
Nicholas Parsons wrote:
Hi List,
I recently pre-ordered a copy of SuSE 8.2 Professional CD/DVD set from the suse web site. I read the specs on SuSE 8.2 off the web site and saw that SuSE now lets you chose another filesystem type; called XFS. I currently use Red Hat 7.3 at home and use ext2 for /boot partition and ext3 for /, /usr, /home partitions on my first hard drive (hda).
I know the main difference between ext2 and ext3 is that ext3 has journaling capability while ext2 does not. Red Hat doesn't give you a choice at installation using its anaconda program of formating a drive with anything other then ext2, ext3 or swap. When recompiling the 2.4.x kernel I noticed that there is a option to load the reiserfs driver into the kernel at boot time.
So does anyone on this list have experience using the other file system types that SuSE offers out of the box? And if so, can you please elaborate which is the "best" to use? There are quite a few from what I gather like ext2, ext3, JFS, XFS, Reiser FS.
I just use the pc at home as a workstation, not a server.
Thanks in advance, ~~Nick
I beleive the only one that actually journals data is ext3. It's the only one that I've NEVER lost a file with. Reiser: Edit (vi) a file. While editing it, turn your pc off. Your file is trashed. EXT2: Do the same. It may or may not recover. Usually does... XFS: " " JFS: I haven't tried it. EXT3: You will never loose a file This may or may not be important to you. Myself, I have to do things with my boxes that cause crashes/hangs. But as the other posts point out, different uses of your box probably should be considered. Myself, I'm convinced EXT3 is for me no matter what my box is doing... Regards Mark
participants (12)
-
arnaud kubacki -
awongxi -
Bruce Marshall -
Charles Philip Chan -
Derek Fountain -
Jerry Feldman -
JW -
Mark Hounschell -
Michael Hasenstein -
Nicholas Parsons -
Praise -
Rohit