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Re: Best file system for Disk quotas and undelete



On Friday 06 May 2005 12:15, Siju George wrote:
> actually I don't run a GUI on this machine because it is a server that
> hosts some PHP website development.

Ahh.  What are you actually trying to prevent, then?  Accidentally deleting 
your web projects?

For software projects, I'd recommend getting used to a version control system 
like Subversion.  Although not intended for it, version control gives you a 
backup of your most recent working copy, along with a "timeline" of backups 
covering the entire evolution of your project.  Apart from that, it'll make 
lots of other software development issues easier :)

If you go a little further, and backup the version control's repository 
directory, you gain not only a two-level backup system, but a backup of 
everything you've ever done on a project :)

> Thanks a lot Lee for introducing Faubackup. I am going to try it. I
> heard of another software called Bacula. How do you compare both??
> which is better??

I haven't tried bacula personally.  I suspect it's more oriented towards 
larger installations of workstations and a central backup server, but I may 
be wrong.  There are a number of backup options, which will mainly depend on 
the scale of your backup needs, how seriously you take the backups, and your 
willingness to be involved in the backup processes themselves.

If you have multiple Debian (or Unix) machines on a secure LAN, the quickest 
way of achieving a "real" backup solution is probably to use faubackup to 
automatically backup everything to another box.

> Presently I am using Ext3 is XFS better than Ext3??

I'm no expert, but from what I've read of others' opinions, I would say so, 
yes.  Ext3 is essentially a hack of Ext2 to gain journalling, whereas XFS has 
a long and successful history in a high-end unix operating system, with 
journalling from the beginning, afaik.  To me, it's just a more professional 
filesystem.

Ext3 gets a lot of good press for exactly that: being a small change to Ext2.  
Basically, it's a simple way to get journalling if you've already setup ext2, 
rather than a good long-term solution, imho.  There are a few arguments for 
the reliability of ext3 (since it can use tested ext2 tools, etc.), but I 
think it's safe to say that XFS is more mature than ext3.  Ext3 is pretty 
slow as well, I think.

Again though, it's a matter of personal choice.  Reiser does have some 
interesting qualities too: notably speed on small files and large 
directories.

There are a few comparisons and benchmarks etc. available online, if you want 
to research your choice further.

On the other hand, if you have Ext3 now, and it works, and your projects are 
on that filesystem... well, if it ain't broke... ;)

> Will I be able to get the option to install XFS while installing from
> the Woody 3.0r5 CD?
> Or should I do something else to get XFS???

Sarge is almost at the point of being the new Woody, and therefore probably a 
better choice than Woody.  I'm not sure if it supports XFS out of the box, 
but if not, you should be able to find Sarge XFS installation images, which 
will set you up with XFS during install, as you're hoping.

> Thanks a lot once again for your reply :-)

Glad to be of help :)

-- 
Lee.



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