Re: which to use: ext3, JFS, XFS, ReiserFS? [Was: new user question:

[Alvin Oga <aoga@mail.Linux-Consulting.com>]

hi ya

> Hugo Vanwoerkom wrote:
> 
> Jimmy Wu wrote:
> > (1) ext3 mounts and unmounts slowly, resulting in increased boot times.

any journally fs will be "slower" than non-journaling fs ( ext2, dos, etc )

> > (2) Neither JFS nor XFS can be made smaller, although they can be
> > extended if needed.

i would tar up the current data and backup to dvd etc before "blowing it up"
to extend the current fs into something bigger or smaller
	- thus the "growing/shrinking" feature is not an issue for my needs

> > (3) JFS performance degrades on larger filesystems, but is least CPU
> > intensive for smaller file systems.

any journalling fs degrades as the fs gets larger

some degrades faster than others

-------

formatting issues ...

- journaling FS can format 1Terabyte in a flash

- ext2 will take forever ( over a day or more )

- it will/might take forever ( over a day or more ) to format 500MB or 1 terabyte fs or larger

- it will take forever ( even longer ) to restore the 1 terabyte of data

- "times" are based on past experience for say P4-2Ghz w/ 1GB of memory or equivalent

> > (4) ReiserFS can be flaky on a system crash.

all journaling fs is "flaky" for system crash...
	- some can recover .. some cannot

	- you probably can't easily recreate the failure mode ( defective fs internals )
	on different fs

> > (5) ReiserFS is the best choice for /var.

maybe .. maybe not

> > (6) On a continuum, XFS offers the best performance, 

for performance and comparisons

	http://linux-sec.net/FS/#FS

> ext3 offers the most data integrity / chances of recovering from a crash,
> and JFS is in the middle.

depends on the defect of the crash

> > (7) Mixing too many file systems in one system will degrade performance

duh ... :-) .. sorry couldn't resist

and it will also confuse the admins when working on different servers, pcs

> > (8) Is there any advantage to using ext2 for /boot rather than ext3?

no to either
	/boot should not be a single partition by itself.. 
	it is part of /bin, /lib, /sbin /etc ... which is the rootfs

	even if /boot is fine, if your "rootfs" is corrupt, you can't boot 
	so there is no point to separating /boot ... we'll leave network boot,
	boooting off cd, and booting off usb stick for another ballgame

c ya
alvin