What to choose: JFS, XFS or ext3 ?

Message

spinner · Post by **spinner** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 4:53 pm

hi,
I will format my two 200GB SATA drives that I have for storage from NTFS to something new.

These disks are for storage only and there will be 700+MB files and smaller like 4+MB files meaning (mp3 and some movies, all legally acquired

)

So I was wondering what filesystem should I choose.
The first thought was for ext3 but after doing some search on the net I believe that JFS or XFS are better options.

Has anyone tried any of those two filesystems: XFS, JFS ?
I will be using kernel 2.6.x and x86_64 and x86.

Any opinions/recomendations/suggestions are welcome

Adrien · Post by **Adrien** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 5:20 pm

Hi!

XFS is just fine for both x86 and x86_64.
I'm not sure JFS is very stable yet on x86_64 though.

Kah · Post by **Kah** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 7:47 pm

Hello,
XFS is fine for storing big files, but here they say:

We only recommend using this filesystem on Linux systems with high-end SCSI and/or fibre channel storage and an uninterruptible power supply. Because XFS aggressively caches in-transit data in RAM, improperly designed programs (those that don't take proper precautions when writing files to disk and there are quite a few of them) can lose a good deal of data if the system goes down unexpectedly.

tost · Post by **tost** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:13 pm

@Kah

I used XFS on x86 several years and never had any problems.
I have a quite normal Pc and sometimes the power was gone away

But the Filesystem wasn´t corrupted or impaired by this.

But nevertheless you´re right, XFS uses a lot of RAM this is not even the best side of it.

I would choose ext3 or ReiserFs.
They are stable and especially ReiserFs is very good for portage and the small files ..

tost

erikm · Post by **erikm** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:16 pm

I just saw this has been updated... hope it's helpful.

tost · Post by **tost** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:35 pm

Great site, thanks a lot

This is really a huge and complete benchmark of almost every filesystem i´m able to use...

I bookmarked the site for the future

tost

ShadowHawkBV · Post by **ShadowHawkBV** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 1:04 am

I've never had a problem with JFS being fast, efficient and very recoverable if hard crashes occur. I've been using it on X86_64 for around 2 years with no troubles, and on X86 for near 4 years. IBM has done good work porting JFS from AIX to OS/2 to Linux.

YMMV.

spinner · Post by **spinner** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 5:08 pm

I am thinking of going with reiserFS.

I repeat that this disk will be only for storage, movies and mp3 and nothing more..

Any more opinions are welcome

billspork · Post by **billspork** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 5:17 pm

I'm using ReiserFS on a 64-bit machine. It hosts mostly music. It's worked perfectly for me since day one. I'd highly recommend it over anything else.

6D7474 · Post by **6D7474** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 6:06 pm

take also a look at http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-305871.html
this thread convinced me to ext3...

Belandrew · Post by **Belandrew** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 9:17 pm

Before switching to XFS or ReiserFS, you should know you should avoid using them on normal PC hardware unless you're also using a UPS with the system monitoring it.
Here's why http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Filesystems/reiserfs.html
It's possible to lose power and not have a problem. Or it's possible to lose power and have that entire file system ruined. It just depends on the timing.
Of course, if it's a bunch of media files you don't care if you lose, rather than ones you do care about, this won't affect your choice.

Lord__Astaroth · Post by **Lord__Astaroth** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 11:41 pm

Use XFS

it have better perfomance for big files

energyman76b · Post by **energyman76b** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 1:10 am

Hi,

xfs overwrittes 'damaged' files with zeros - so guaranteed data loss.

jfs is dead slow.

And portage is a zillion small files - ideal for reiserfs.

tuber · Post by **tuber** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 6:52 am

My complaint with ext3 is that I can't resize the partition while it's mounted.

erikm · Post by **erikm** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 7:47 am

energyman76b wrote:...
And portage is a zillion small files - ideal for reiserfs.

Sure, until after a handful of syncs, when the fragmentation is so bad the cache update takes ten minutes... @ spinner: Check out the thread 6D7474 linked in. I think a well tuned ext3 is the optimal solution so far.

chrisaw · Post by **chrisaw** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 9:32 am

ReiserFS (3.6) is my personal favourite FS. It's the fastest i've found out there, especially on SCSI/SATA drives. My favourite feature is if you mess it up beyond all belief it always seems to find a way to repair its self from a LiveCD (worst case scenario

)

rteichmann · Post by **rteichmann** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 12:23 pm

tost wrote:Great site, thanks a lot

This is really a huge and complete benchmark of almost every filesystem i´m able to use...

I bookmarked the site for the future

tost

Sadly he's using an ancient CPU for his tests, makes the results meaningless for many people.

andrewd18 · Post by **andrewd18** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:14 pm

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-305871.html

With those modifications, I'm extremely happy with my ext3 partitions. Comparable to reiserfs 3.6's speed, and twice as stable on my computer.

~~ Andrew D.

tost · Post by **tost** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:18 pm

My biggest fear is that my reiserfs partition gets fragemented as you read in many postings here

But until now it´s working fast and secure every day ..

tost

dweigert · Post by **dweigert** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:56 pm

One of the very nicesct features of XFS is the "realtime" feature. This lets you stream data off of the disks in an isochronys manner. It is ideal for media playback by the way. I used to use it under Irix for that very reason.

Dan

spinner · Post by **spinner** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 6:10 pm

Any proposal for the reiserfs block size for mp3 and movies ?

I believe it should be 2K to save free space but any ideas are welcome.

reiserfs has fragmentation issues ?

kyphros · Post by **kyphros** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 10:41 pm

I keep two TB of music and movies on XFS. It works very well for streaming over my network, and coming from SGI I trust it more than ReiserFS.

longship · Post by **longship** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 4:36 am

spinner wrote:hi,
I will format my two 200GB SATA drives that I have for storage from NTFS to something new.

These disks are for storage only and there will be 700+MB files and smaller like 4+MB files meaning (mp3 and some movies, all legally acquired )

So I was wondering what filesystem should I choose.
The first thought was for ext3 but after doing some search on the net I believe that JFS or XFS are better options.

Has anyone tried any of those two filesystems: XFS, JFS ?
I will be using kernel 2.6.x and x86_64 and x86.

Any opinions/recomendations/suggestions are welcome

If you use ext3 you can gain some performance with
"mke2fs -j -O dir_index /dev/<part>"

That adds an indexed directorty structure.

deluge · Post by **deluge** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 9:37 am

Take a look http://linuxgazette.net/102/piszcz.html and http://linuxgazette.net/122/piszcz.html

erikm · Post by **erikm** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 10:43 am

Too funny. That's the second double link in this thread. Don't you people read before posting?

What to choose: JFS, XFS or ext3 ?

What to choose: JFS, XFS or ext3 ?

Re: What to choose: JFS, XFS or ext3 ?