What is the deal with ReiserFs?

Misfit138 · 2007-02-06 21:28:32

What exactly is the deal on ReiserFs?
ALL the literature I read on it leads me to believe it is an excellent, fast, secure, stable and best Linux file system, by a significant margin.
However, whenever it is mentioned in these forums, it is almost invariably in a negative context.
Having trouble with pacman? ReiserFs is the cause.
Poor performance? Data loss? ReiserFs is the cause.
I use it myself, and I haven't ever used ext3 with Arch, so I have no comparison, but am I missing out on some performance, speed or stability that I might gain by using something other than Reiser?
I have never really had an issue with data loss, and Arch is the fastest distro I have ever used, but pacman does have a little lag the first time I use it on a bootup....anyway, just wanted your thoughts on this.

Last edited by Misfit138 (2007-02-06 21:29:19)

Stalwart · 2007-02-06 21:33:45

The only problem i had with reiser - no write support on windoze (sucks when you take HDD to friend to share stuff). Now my main system is laptop with / on reiserfs (for speed) and /home on ext3 (just in case something is wring with hardware)

xerverius · 2007-02-06 21:42:45

I stopped using reiserfs recently and switched to ext3. Recent benchmarks show the speed of reiserfs is not *a lot* faster then other fs', but the support of ext3 (and ext4) is much better in the kernel. I also lost data with a reiserfs fs, but I think that won't differ with any other fs, but recovering from ext3 is easier then it is for reiserfs.

So that's my point of view, reiser might be a bit faster, but it's more placebo then real seconds (you don't create 10e3 new folders every day, and if you do, who cares if it takes 2 seconds longer), but you can only loose your data once, and I guess you're a happy man if you can recover it (don't start the backup discussion please..).

And for pacman, try something like pacman-cage or something similar.

jerem · 2007-02-06 21:57:02

Personnally, I was fed up with the pacman db being so slow when put on an ext3 fs (even with dir_index and a few speedup options). Pacman-optimize script did not help long.

Switched to reiserfs, now it is lightning fast.

Nonetheless, I'm still using ext3 for my / and my /home.

chaosgeisterchen · 2007-02-06 23:42:53

We're talking about reiser4 or reiserfs ?

From what I've read, reiser4 is the fastest available file system at the moment, but it's true, what xerverius is saying - during daily use you won't ever notice the speed margin.

Misfit138 · 2007-02-07 02:41:45

So what is the correlation between poor pacman performance and Reiserfs?

xerverius · 2007-02-07 09:07:38

Because the pacman 'db' contains a huge amount of files and folders, it gets fragmentated after a while (not a single file, but because there are so maybe small files). Therefore it's recommended (for speed) to use a script like pacman-cage, so all the small files are bundled 1 one file on the hard disk.

Last edited by xerverius (2007-02-07 09:08:07)

iphitus · 2007-02-07 09:27:33

What filesystem you use, makes no difference to pacman's speed. On all filesystems, over time, the files of the DB will become scattered around the drive. This happens regardless of whether you use Reiserfs, Reiser4, EXT3 or vfat.

For now, either use some method of caching the db, or put the DB on a small partition to itself. I have a seperate /var partition, and as there's little other than pacman that is of any size and actively used, scattering of the files is kept minimal.

James

Convergence · 2009-02-09 00:44:56

iphitus wrote:

What filesystem you use, makes no difference to pacman's speed. On all filesystems, over time, the files of the DB will become scattered around the drive. This happens regardless of whether you use Reiserfs, Reiser4, EXT3 or vfat.
For now, either use some method of caching the db, or put the DB on a small partition to itself. I have a seperate /var partition, and as there's little other than pacman that is of any size and actively used, scattering of the files is kept minimal.
James

I know that this is an ancient thread, but I disagree so strongly that I had to say something. I haven't tried ext3 with pacman but I can tell you with with a certainty, reiser3 performs _much_ better than xfs at pacman database inquiries. When I first came to arch, I was already prejudiced against ext3, so I never even tried installing it on my root fs. But I can tell you that at one point, I switched to XFS, and it was unbearable. Pacman inquiries were always pretty much instant under reiserfs, but under XFS, an initial inquiry took at least 10 seconds. I reinstalled using XFS again, and still the same result. Fed up, I went back to reiser, and pacman inquiries were once again instant. I realize that you didn't mention XFS in your FS list, but I just wanted to point out that FS can definitely make a difference. I have read elsewhere in this forum that Reiserfs

The reason that I refused to use ext3 is because a long time ago, I had a HD that was dying fast. On that HD, I had two partitions with two different FS', one was reiserfs, the other was ext3. I was able to easily recover all data from the drive from the reiser partition, but on the ext3 partition, I permanently lost a lot of data. I realize that this could have been coincidence. This was probably the result of actual damage patterns on the physical drive, but it didn't matter, I wouldn't be using ext3 again.

Now I am considering using ext4 for my / directory. I am already using it for /home, and am happy with it. (Of course the performance demands on that partition aren't as great as they are on /)

Never tried reiser4, because it was apparent that hans had slipped into madness.

Last edited by Convergence (2009-02-09 00:48:19)

skottish · 2009-02-09 01:01:28

I don't want to be rude here, but this thread is very, very old. Sorry.

Arch Linux

#1 2007-02-06 21:28:32

What is the deal with ReiserFs?

#2 2007-02-06 21:33:45

Re: What is the deal with ReiserFs?

#3 2007-02-06 21:42:45

Re: What is the deal with ReiserFs?

#4 2007-02-06 21:57:02

Re: What is the deal with ReiserFs?

#5 2007-02-06 23:42:53

Re: What is the deal with ReiserFs?

#6 2007-02-07 02:41:45

Re: What is the deal with ReiserFs?

#7 2007-02-07 09:07:38

Re: What is the deal with ReiserFs?

#8 2007-02-07 09:27:33

Re: What is the deal with ReiserFs?

#9 2009-02-09 00:44:56

Re: What is the deal with ReiserFs?

#10 2009-02-09 01:01:28

Re: What is the deal with ReiserFs?

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