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#1 2004-08-23 04:24:46

rasat
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From: Finland, working in Romania
Registered: 2002-12-27
Posts: 2,293
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FAT vs. Ext

This is an area (filesystem) I don't know much about and want to get a basic idea.

I was seaching for information about Ext3, what bit format it uses or if any. I got an old HD 1.7GB with FAT4 format and noticed there is a huge difference between FAT4 and FAT32. Example, to install win'98 on FAT4 takes 208 minutes compared to FAT32's 45 minutes.

1. Does Ext2 and Ext3 base on similar "bit" format system as FAT?
2. What about Reiserfs?
3. When speaking about 64bit system in Linux, is it the HD format or  applications mode (binaries)?


Markku

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#2 2004-08-23 09:49:46

Bobonov
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From: Roma - Italy
Registered: 2003-05-07
Posts: 295

Re: FAT vs. Ext

I got an old HD 1.7GB with FAT4 format and noticed there is a huge difference between FAT4 and FAT32...............

The different version of FAT have differencies in performance and especially in disk space you can manage. For instance win95 is using fat16, the size of the partition is limited around 480Mb (or more I do not rember anymore), if you have bigger disk you have to create several partitions.
For modern filesystems this limitation does not exist anymore or is so big that you do not have to worry about (in order of terabyte).


1. Does Ext2 and Ext3 base on similar "bit" format system as FAT?
No, Ext(n) and FAT have two completely different approach. One particularity is that FAT is a system that sometime corupt information without apparent reason. In fatc MS does not use it anymore.
Ext3 represent an evolution of Ext2, it include also journaling, basically it is a system that prevent dataloss in case of unxpected shutdown, like electricity goes away. In few words Journaling the filesystem consist in logging all the operation so in case of problem recovery programs knows where to look to recover the disk.

2. What about Reiserfs?
ResiserFs is another Linux journaled filesystem. The current version supported by the kernel is 3. Now is out version 4 and they claim that is much faster than before. Reiser perfom very well when you have a lot of small file to manage/access.

3. When speaking about 64bit system in Linux, is it the HD format or  applications mode (binaries)?
No we speak about processor archiecture. Like AMD 64(bit). So it is also the way you compile optimized programs. Now we have an archlinux optimized for i686, there are discussion and proposal to optimize it also for AMD 64

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#3 2004-08-23 11:53:13

rasat
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From: Finland, working in Romania
Registered: 2002-12-27
Posts: 2,293
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Re: FAT vs. Ext

Thanks.

I found an Ext3 vs. Reisefs test:
http://www.gurulabs.com/ext3-reiserfs-2.html


Markku

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#4 2004-08-23 13:07:41

Bobonov
Member
From: Roma - Italy
Registered: 2003-05-07
Posts: 295

Re: FAT vs. Ext

Here are namesys test (they develop reiser) for ext2/ext3/resier3/reiser4
http://www.namesys.com/benchmarks.html
As you can see ext2 is quite fast because it does not write the journal....

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#5 2005-01-22 16:58:43

thegnu
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From: Brooklyn, NY
Registered: 2004-05-04
Posts: 280
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Re: FAT vs. Ext

Bobonov wrote:

For instance win95 is using fat16, the size of the partition is limited around 480Mb (or more I do not rember anymore), if you have bigger disk you have to create several partitions.

I think it's 2GB, but I'm not really sure either.  It's kind of funny how relatively tiny hard drives were and how bitchy I am about having a mere 220GB to work with on my current computer.  smile


fffft!

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#6 2005-01-23 11:12:06

scarecrow
Member
From: Greece
Registered: 2004-11-18
Posts: 715

Re: FAT vs. Ext

For the typical cluster sizes, FAT16 is limited to 2 GB and FAT 32 theoretically goes up to 2 terrabytes. In practice, large FAT32 volumes amount to tons of slack space and pitiful performance- Microshaft does not allow (for a good reason) all versions of windoze to create FAT32 partitions larger than 32 GB.

Different limits than the above can occur with nonstandard cluster sizes, or when using a puter with an old BIOS.


Microshaft delenda est

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#7 2005-01-23 16:35:13

iBertus
Member
From: Greenville, NC
Registered: 2004-11-04
Posts: 2,228

Re: FAT vs. Ext

I recall once trying to install Windows NT 4 onto a machine with what at the time was considered a 'large' disk. It was a major pain in the @$$. And M$ support pages said the only solution was to have a 2GB system partition and partitio the rest into other partitions. IMHO, a 10GB disk doesn't need four partitions.

I was watching The Screen Savers the other day and they built a desktop with 1TB of SATA drives.

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