Hi All, Maybe it's not the first time someone asked about which FS is the best for server, but I really like to have an overview which one is better for server and for desktop. Is it reiserfs, ext3 or xfs ? Does it matter what FS I should install for server or for desktop ? regards, -- Arie Reynaldi Zanahar reymanx at gmail.com http://www.reynaldi.or.id
On Jan 10, 2005, at 9:02, ReymanX wrote:
Hi All,
Maybe it's not the first time someone asked about which FS is the best for server, but I really like to have an overview which one is better for server and for desktop. Is it reiserfs, ext3 or xfs ? Does it matter what FS I should install for server or for desktop ?
I have used ReiserFS in the past, now Ext3. Ext3 seem to be more crash-proof, ReiserFS sometimes loose permission after OS crash or freeze. BTW, ReiserFS is slightly faster. ********************************************* * Best Regards --- Andrei Verovski * * Personal Home Page * http://snow.prohosting.com/guru4mac/ * Mac, Linux, DTP, Development, IT WEB Site *********************************************
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005, ReymanX wrote:
Hi All,
Maybe it's not the first time someone asked about which FS is the best for server, but I really like to have an overview which one is better for server and for desktop. Is it reiserfs, ext3 or xfs ? Does it matter what FS I should install for server or for desktop ?
First, a warning: you might as well ask for what the best food is. You
are going to get as many opinions as eyebrows. Everybody's needs,
priorities, willingness to live with issues, and so on is different.
That said, I'd use ext3. In 9 years I haven't had data loss due to
filesystem bugs with the ext2 (and later ext3) family. Reiser does NOT
deal with bad blocks or other kinds of failure well. Ever single time
I've tried reiser I've had data loss. Last time I used it was a year or
two ago.
These days I've been playing with IBM's jfs quite a bit, although I
think ext3 with directory indexing (2.6) is the best combination of
reliability and good speed. I wouldn't touch xfs unless you had very
special needs.
--
Carpe diem - Seize the day.
Carp in denim - There's a fish in my pants!
Jon Nelson
I did a quick search for references. We have had some discussions on this
before.
http://librenix.com/?inode=5417
http://www.gurulabs.com/ext3-reiserfs.html This is 2002
This is only a couple.
The bottom line is that both ext3 and ResierFS are good file journaling
systems. ReiserFS is probably a bit better on smaller file systems.
--
Jerry Feldman
* Jerry Feldman
I did a quick search for references. We have had some discussions on this before.
http://librenix.com/?inode=5417 http://www.gurulabs.com/ext3-reiserfs.html This is 2002 This is only a couple.
The bottom line is that both ext3 and ResierFS are good file journaling systems. ReiserFS is probably a bit better on smaller file systems.
Reiser should be faster if you have *a lot* of small files and/or a lot of directories. It's marginally faster if you have a Filesystem with mainly large files. However, based on my experience (maintaining a few 100 linux boxes ranging from SFF, laptops to redundant servers) reiserfs can occasionally throw a wobbly and leave you with incorect or inconsistent data, esp. on laptops. Also, if you have a dual boot laptop, and you want to have *READ* access from the winodws side, you're (much) better off with ext3. Currently listening to: the radio Gerhard, (faliquid@xs4all.nl) == The Acoustic Motorbiker == -- __O Wake up in the morning,when the sun starts to shine =`\<, My heads still aching and my lips taste of wine (=)/(=) Trying to remember, what we both did last night.
On Monday 10 January 2005 9:16 am, Jerry Feldman wrote:
I did a quick search for references. We have had some discussions on this before.
<snip>
The bottom line is that both ext3 and ResierFS are good file journaling systems. ReiserFS is probably a bit better on smaller file systems. <snip> I think, given some of the recent teething pains of reiser , you might want to wait til the new reiser is released. According to Linux-magazine.com a few month's ago that will solve most of the current problems w/ reiser and give us a whole lot of new "gee wizardry" things as well.. I've been using jfs for the past couple of Suse Distributions , and as long as I remember to make that the choice, I've never lost any data either. I have w/ the reiser and 9.1 bug.. ;/
as the man said, it gets to be what do you like ... oh yeah, if you have some sort of system lockup .. misbehaving hardware for instance.. jfs boots faster on the reboot ;) -- j nemo me impune lacessit 'Quis custodiet ipsos custodiates?'
-----Original Message----- From: Jon Nelson [mailto:jnelson-suse@jamponi.net] Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 8:03 AM To: ReymanX Cc: suse-linux-e@suse.com Subject: Re: [SLE] Which better journalled FS
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005, ReymanX wrote:
Hi All,
Maybe it's not the first time someone asked about which FS is the best for server, but I really like to have an overview which one is better for server and for desktop. Is it reiserfs, ext3 or xfs ? Does it matter what FS I should install for server or for desktop ?
First, a warning: you might as well ask for what the best food is. You are going to get as many opinions as eyebrows. Everybody's needs, priorities, willingness to live with issues, and so on is different.
That said, I'd use ext3. In 9 years I haven't had data loss due to filesystem bugs with the ext2 (and later ext3) family. Reiser does NOT deal with bad blocks or other kinds of failure well. Ever single time I've tried reiser I've had data loss. Last time I used it was a year or two ago.
These days I've been playing with IBM's jfs quite a bit, although I think ext3 with directory indexing (2.6) is the best combination of reliability and good speed. I wouldn't touch xfs unless you had very special needs.
-- Carpe diem - Seize the day. Carp in denim - There's a fish in my pants!
Jon Nelson
-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com
XFS was a bad choice with the original 9.1 release. I lost some data there when I upgraded from 9.0, and had to reformat the partition to get the install to continue. That, and a mistake on my part when backing up the data. I messed up on the backup. Currently, after a recent reinstall, I'm running the default Reiserfs on my / partition, and JFS on the /home partition. What can I say, I like to experiment (home computer).
On 14:02 Mon 10 Jan , ReymanX wrote:
Hi All,
Maybe it's not the first time someone asked about which FS is the best for server, but I really like to have an overview which one is better for server and for desktop. Is it reiserfs, ext3 or xfs ? Does it matter what FS I should install for server or for desktop ?
regards, -- Arie Reynaldi Zanahar reymanx at gmail.com http://www.reynaldi.or.id
I tried Reiserfs but am now back to ext3 because the box crashed, reiser didn't recover itself on next boot and I ended up w/corrupted data. Reiserfs may be faster but ext3 has never failed to correct itself, apparently, because data corruption has not been a problem --even after having to mash the off switch a time or two because of a lockup. -- ..."Yogi" CH Namasté Yoga Studio
On Mon, 2005-01-10 at 10:40, C Hamel wrote: <snip>
I tried Reiserfs but am now back to ext3 because the box crashed, reiser didn't recover itself on next boot and I ended up w/corrupted data. Reiserfs may be faster but ext3 has never failed to correct itself, apparently, because data corruption has not been a problem --even after having to mash the off switch a time or two because of a lockup. -- ..."Yogi" CH Namasté Yoga Studio
Thanks, Yogi et al, for refreshing my memory on this topic. I just *knew* there had to be a reason behind this convoluted partitioning scheme! <g> On the serious side, I don't know if it's fair to blame my experience on Reiserfs, but I once had a default (swap + single Reiserfs partition) SuSE install get scrambled -- irrecoverably -- after a power outage. I spent a lot of time after that googling and studying people's comments on this issue. I eventually opted to keep the core system on Reiserfs (for speed) but moved /home, /opt and /var to ext3. FWIW, after the last power outage, I went rummaging around again gathering boot diskettes, CD's, manuals, scratch paper... turned off the phone and made a pot 'o coffee etc. -- only to return and find a KDE3 login screen staring back at me. I was... almost... disappointed. :-) my 2 cents! - Carl
Þann Mánudagur 10 janúar 2005 20:49 skrifaði Carl Hartung:
FWIW, after the last power outage, I went rummaging around again gathering boot diskettes, CD's, manuals, scratch paper... turned off the phone and made a pot 'o coffee etc. -- only to return and find a KDE3 login screen staring back at me. I was... almost... disappointed. :-)
This is my setup: <pre> /home/oehansen> df Filsystem 1K-block Använt Tillgängl Anv% Monterat på LABEL=ROTEN 121664504 66298368 55366136 55% / tmpfs 512308 32 512276 1% /dev/shm /dev/sda1 1050156 2028 1048128 1% /windows/C /dev/sda5 1035660 7116 975936 1% /boot </pre> All filesystems are reiser, except for Windows and shm of course. My system also has a tendency to "shutdown" occasionally, just goes "poof" for no apparent reason as if there was a power outage. The powerlight blinks, and I have to take out the power cord and replug it. Never had a loss of data to my knowledge yet ... I selected reiser because there are many "small" files around, rather than "few big" ones. In which reiser has the advantage.
my 2 cents!
My 2 euro cent exchange.
Örn Einar Hansen wrote:
Þann Mánudagur 10 janúar 2005 20:49 skrifaði Carl Hartung:
FWIW, after the last power outage, I went rummaging around again gathering boot diskettes, CD's, manuals, scratch paper... turned off the phone and made a pot 'o coffee etc. -- only to return and find a KDE3 login screen staring back at me. I was... almost... disappointed. :-)
This is my setup:
<pre> /home/oehansen> df Filsystem 1K-block Använt Tillgängl Anv% Monterat på LABEL=ROTEN 121664504 66298368 55366136 55% / tmpfs 512308 32 512276 1% /dev/shm /dev/sda1 1050156 2028 1048128 1% /windows/C /dev/sda5 1035660 7116 975936 1% /boot </pre>
All filesystems are reiser, except for Windows and shm of course. My system also has a tendency to "shutdown" occasionally, just goes "poof" for no apparent reason as if there was a power outage. The powerlight blinks, and I have to take out the power cord and replug it.
Recently I had some serious problems with my box of a similiar kind. I turned out that it was the power supply which was too "small". I had to many disc and other devices in it which caused that behaviour. Maybe you should consider this and check it out on your system.
Never had a loss of data to my knowledge yet ... I selected reiser because there are many "small" files around, rather than "few big" ones. In which reiser has the advantage.
my 2 cents!
My 2 euro cent exchange.
Yours Martin
Þann Mánudagur 10 janúar 2005 22:10 skrifaði Martin Deppe:
Recently I had some serious problems with my box of a similiar kind. I turned out that it was the power supply which was too "small". I had to many disc and other devices in it which caused that behaviour. Maybe you should consider this and check it out on your system.
Thanks for the hint, it's well noted and I'll follow your advice. Thanks, Örn
All filesystems are reiser, except for Windows and shm of course. My system also has a tendency to "shutdown" occasionally, just goes "poof" for no apparent reason as if there was a power outage. The powerlight blinks, and I have to take out the power cord and replug it.
This sounds an awful lot like a kernel/hardware problem. Try disabling APM in your bios and boot the system with the "noapic" option and see if that stops the hard freezes. Also, if you have another freeze like that check /var/log/messages for clues. Jeff
Þann Mánudagur 10 janúar 2005 22:17 skrifaði Jeffrey Laramie:
This sounds an awful lot like a kernel/hardware problem. Try disabling APM in your bios and boot the system with the "noapic" option and see if that stops the hard freezes. Also, if you have another freeze like that check /var/log/messages for clues.
Already done that, no "oops" ... nothing there to put ones hands on. My system is a AMD64, with SATA drive and a 300W PSU. And I think Martin is right that it's the PSU. Örn
Vrn Einar Hansen wrote:
All filesystems are reiser, except for Windows and shm of course. My system also has a tendency to "shutdown" occasionally, just goes "poof" for no apparent reason as if there was a power outage. The powerlight blinks, and I have to take out the power cord and replug it.
Exactly what I had with my AMD64 box, so I switched from reiser to ext3 - but at the same time I updated the BIOS as the one supplied had been removed from the list of those available. It's been running some time without a problem, so I'm just about to switch back to reiser and see if the BIOS fix was the solution. -- Lester Caine ----------------------------- L.S.Caine Electronic Services
Þann Mánudagur 10 janúar 2005 22:39 skrifaði Lester Caine:
Exactly what I had with my AMD64 box, so I switched from reiser to ext3 - but at the same time I updated the BIOS as the one supplied had been removed from the list of those available. It's been running some time without a problem, so I'm just about to switch back to reiser and see if the BIOS fix was the solution.
Would appreciate your take on it, when you feel that you're confident at what it was, as there appear to be many incidents of this kind ... especially with AMD64 systems. Personally, I can "almost" reproduce the problem by firing up amaroK, but it's not the sound system, as I often play games with a lot of sound. I'm sorta betting on Martins advice, that its the PSU, and will exchange it as the one I have is on the "low" side, and also the oldest part of the system. Örn
Vrn Einar Hansen wrote:
I'm sorta betting on Martins advice, that its the PSU, and will exchange it as the one I have is on the "low" side, and also the oldest part of the system.
I'd had to replace the PSU in my 6 year old rack when I put in the AMD64 board anyway - no P4 connector on the old one ;) The new psu is more powerful and a lot quieter as well. -- Lester Caine ----------------------------- L.S.Caine Electronic Services
Örn Einar Hansen wrote:
Þann Mánudagur 10 janúar 2005 22:39 skrifaði Lester Caine:
Exactly what I had with my AMD64 box, so I switched from reiser to ext3 - but at the same time I updated the BIOS as the one supplied had been removed from the list of those available. It's been running some time without a problem, so I'm just about to switch back to reiser and see if the BIOS fix was the solution.
Would appreciate your take on it, when you feel that you're confident at what it was, as there appear to be many incidents of this kind ... especially with AMD64 systems. Personally, I can "almost" reproduce the problem by firing up amaroK, but it's not the sound system, as I often play games with a lot of sound.
I'm sorta betting on Martins advice, that its the PSU, and will exchange it as the one I have is on the "low" side, and also the oldest part of the system.
Örn
Well, once (long time ago) I added one (that still was ok) but then another fixed disc to my system and the problems began. At that time I had a 300 W psu too. That one even smoked away some point of time. A new one too later on. Then I got a bigger one with 420 W. This one worked quite a while for me, until I put again 2 more discs in my box. And again it started to crash from time to time. This time I just removed 3 devices again and since then it just works fine. Today I know that I can't put more devices into my box than I have without running the risc to crash it from time to time again. But there is most likely another solution, which is to put another psu for the additional devices into my box. I'll try that and might let you know about the result, but right now I have no such psu available, hence it will not be in the near future. Martin
My system also has a tendency to "shutdown" occasionally, just goes "poof" for no apparent reason as if there was a power outage. The powerlight blinks, and I have to take out the power cord and replug it.
Never had a loss of data to my knowledge yet ... I selected reiser because there are many "small" files around, rather than "few big" ones. In which reiser has the advantage. I think that you might have a bad power supply. I had a similar situation on my system where the drives would simply go offline. I tried everything from replacing the cables, ... Finally the power supply just died. Replaced it and everything worked fine with no freezes, no unexplained power offs, ... However, it did freeze last week when I went to test my new thumb drive, but
On Monday 10 January 2005 16:00, Örn Einar Hansen wrote:
the problem was a user error where I jiggled the power cord :-)
The morale of my story is to keep software guys away from hardware.
--
Jerry Feldman
Arie, On Sunday 09 January 2005 23:02, ReymanX wrote:
Hi All,
Maybe it's not the first time someone asked about which FS is the best for server, but I really like to have an overview which one is better for server and for desktop. Is it reiserfs, ext3 or xfs ? Does it matter what FS I should install for server or for desktop ?
Am I the only person using XFS? I'd like to reply to Arie's request, but I don't really have anything to compare it with. On those rare times (I could count them on one hand with fingers to spare) that my system has crashed or lost power in the past year, XFS has taken it totally in stride with very quick reboots and no sign of system damage.
regards, -- Arie Reynaldi Zanahar
Randall Schulz
On Monday 10 January 2005 19:59, Randall R Schulz wrote:
Am I the only person using XFS?
I'd like to reply to Arie's request, but I don't really have anything to compare it with. On those rare times (I could count them on one hand with fingers to spare) that my system has crashed or lost power in the past year, XFS has taken it totally in stride with very quick reboots and no sign of system damage.
Anders Johansson has said here in the past that XFS is very good and that he uses it. I can only assume that it is, given that his skills have been proved time and time again on this list. I'm going to try it next install. BTW, is it ok/possible to use, say, reiser for /home, XFS for / .. ie is it ok to mix filesystems? I mean on seperate partitions.
Op maandag 10 januari 2005 21:29, schreef Jake Pumphrey:
BTW, is it ok/possible to use, say, reiser for /home, XFS for / .. ie is it ok to mix filesystems? I mean on seperate partitions.
No problem. There is something with reiserfs and xfs. I believe reiserfs is better (faster) with larger files and xfs for smaller ones (perhaps it is the other way around, use the internet for know for sure). A disadvantage of using different FS' is that you need to learn more and different commands in case of failure... -- Richard Bos Without a home the journey is endless
Richard, On Monday 10 January 2005 12:28, Richard Bos wrote:
Op maandag 10 januari 2005 21:29, schreef Jake Pumphrey:
BTW, is it ok/possible to use, say, reiser for /home, XFS for / .. ie is it ok to mix filesystems? I mean on seperate partitions.
No problem. There is something with reiserfs and xfs. I believe reiserfs is better (faster) with larger files and xfs for smaller ones (perhaps it is the other way around, use the internet for know for sure). A disadvantage of using different FS' is that you need to learn more and different commands in case of failure...
The other way 'round, I believe. XFS was specifically designed by SGI for the kinds of things their systems are used for: High-end animation generation, among other things. They routinely generate many very large files.
-- Richard Bos
Randall Schulz
Op maandag 10 januari 2005 21:33, schreef Randall R Schulz:
No problem. There is something with reiserfs and xfs. I believe reiserfs is better (faster) with larger files and xfs for smaller ones (perhaps it is the other way around, use the internet for know for sure). A disadvantage of using different FS' is that you need to learn more and different commands in case of failure...
The other way 'round, I believe. XFS was specifically designed by SGI for the kinds of things their systems are used for: High-end animation generation, among other things. They routinely generate many very large files.
I found the fs test review that I had in mind: http://linuxgazette.net/102/piszcz.html (hmm, what is the short conclusion ;) -- Richard Bos Without a home the journey is endless
Richard, On Monday 10 January 2005 12:49, Richard Bos wrote:
...
(hmm, what is the short conclusion ;)
I'd say it's that the authors know how to use Gnumeric but do not understand graphic design. I'm too lazy to figure out if they understand benchmarking...
-- Richard Bos
Randall Schulz
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 11:59:21 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:
Arie,
On Sunday 09 January 2005 23:02, ReymanX wrote:
Hi All,
Maybe it's not the first time someone asked about which FS is the best for server, but I really like to have an overview which one is better for server and for desktop. Is it reiserfs, ext3 or xfs ? Does it matter what FS I should install for server or for desktop ?
Am I the only person using XFS?
I'd like to reply to Arie's request, but I don't really have anything to compare it with. On those rare times (I could count them on one hand with fingers to spare) that my system has crashed or lost power in the past year, XFS has taken it totally in stride with very quick reboots and no sign of system damage.
regards, -- Arie Reynaldi Zanahar
Randall Schulz
I do a lot with XFS. 2 years ago, I totally agreed with SUSE calling it experimental. It had several serious bugs. Now I pretty much trust it. With large files (like ISOs), it is much faster than ext3. Maybe 30%. In a true enterprise environment with hardware snapshots, etc. I definately think it is a strong contender. ie. You need pre-shapshot freeze functionality from the command-line to do this. I don't know if the other Linux filesystems have those types of enterprise features or not. Greg -- Greg Freemyer
Maybe it's not the first time someone asked about which FS is the best for server, but I really like to have an overview which one is better for server and for desktop. Is it reiserfs, ext3 or xfs ? Does it matter what FS I should install for server or for desktop ?
Pay attention if you decide to use XFS on a root soft raid partition. You will have trouble there. I have used ReiserFS and I feel quite comfortable with it. The scenario involved a software radi1 and a data pool software raid5 scsi disks. Mind you, XFS caused a lot of stress and writing long essays to the boss trying to explain why the system froze. No such thing with ReiserFS (at least so far). I have just started testing JFS, so I can't put my hand in fire for it, but it seems to work nicely. EXT3 is the old, tested fellow. Nowadays it even supports ACLs, so that I guess you can't really miss if you choose it, but do make sure to read some comparisons. Google will help, as always. Namely, EXT3 lacks some functionality of the other players.
participants (18)
-
Andrei Verovski -
C Hamel -
Carl Hartung -
Gerhard den Hollander -
Greg Freemyer -
Jake Pumphrey -
Jeffrey Laramie -
Jerry Feldman -
jfweber＠bellsouth.net -
Jon Nelson -
Kevin Krieser -
Lester Caine -
Martin Deppe -
Predrag Micakovic -
Randall R Schulz -
ReymanX -
Richard Bos -
Örn Einar Hansen