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Re: ext3 why?



On Tue, Feb 24, 2004 at 10:40:44PM -0500, xucaen wrote:
| On Tue, Feb 24, 2004 at 10:24:41PM -0500, Derrick 'dman' Hudson wrote:
| > On Wed, Feb 25, 2004 at 03:49:58AM +0100, Jan Minar wrote:
| > | On Tue, Feb 24, 2004 at 09:51:26PM -0500, xucaen wrote:
| > | > hi all, just looking for information here; why use ext3 journaling
| > | > fs instead of ext2?
| > | 
| > | Because 3 > 2.
| > 
| > LOL!
| 
| same here!  :-D
| 
| > I use ext3 for main partitions so that if the power fails, I be likely
| > to have a corrupt filesystem.  I still use ext2 for /boot, for
| > example, because it is small (therefore the journal's overhead is more
| > expensive) and it isn't updated very frequently and so the probability
| 
| so would you say it's ok to not use ext3 on smaller drive, lets say
| a 2 gb drive?

That depends.  I use ext3 on a 320MB drive in the 486 acting as the
router/firewall at my parents' house.  I made it ext3 so that there is
no risk of corruption when the power fails.

| > As for ext3 vs $OTHER_JOURNALLED_FS, I already had ext2 disks with
| > data, so moving to ext3 was easy and painless.  Moving to anything
| > else wouldn't have been so simple.
| 
| Is there a way to convert an existing drive from
| ext2 to ext3 without loss of data? (kinda like partition magic?)

Yes.  In a nutshell :
    run 'tune2fs -j /dev/<blah>'
    edit /etc/fstab to say ext3 instead of ext2
    unmount the partition
    mount the partition as ext3.

It's a little nicer, but not necessary, to unmount the partition
before creating the journal.

Note that an ext3 partition is still a valid ext2 partition; thus an
ext2-aware kernel without ext3 support can still use the disk (albeit
without the journal).

I suggest reading some of the more detailed instructions on the web
that talk about tricks to let the ext3/ext2 mounting be automatic and
a little safer if you misconfigure something the first time around.
(namely declaring it ext3,ext2 and making an fsck symlink)

HTH,
-D

-- 
The heart is deceitful above all things
    and beyond cure.
    Who can understand it?
 
I the Lord search the heart
    and examine the mind,
to reward a man according to his conduct,
    according to what his deeds deserve.
 
        Jeremiah 17:9-10
 
www: http://dman13.dyndns.org/~dman/            jabber: dman@dman13.dyndns.org

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