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Duologic

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2007-11-11

Posts: 249

File system for Backup drive

I'm searching for a comparison of some file systems (ext2,xfs,...)  that can be used for different backup drives.
Currently the drives use FAT32, but 4Gig max file size is a bit too small.

What would you recommend?
The file system must be able to handle hard drives (USB or eSata) between 100G and 500G.
The backupfiles are mostly Gzipped or Bzipped tarballs between 20M and 10G.

Ranguvar

Member

Registered: 2008-08-12

Posts: 2,549

Re: File system for Backup drive

I wouldn't really worry about it, I highly doubt you'll notice any difference. Pretty much any FS will do. Off the top of my head, ext2/ext3 is always a fine stable choice, and XFS apparently does well wit large files.

lifeafter2am

Member

From: 127.0.0.1

Registered: 2009-06-10

Posts: 1,332

Re: File system for Backup drive

I second XFS for large files, it tends to be less forgiving with various hardware problems (failures) than other filesystems though.

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LeoSolaris

Member

From: South Carolina

Registered: 2008-03-30

Posts: 354

Re: File system for Backup drive

You could try zfs through fuse. It has snapshot capability to backup your backups, and raid like configuring for multiple hard drive arrangements. At least until (a stable) btrfs gets here...

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graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,597

Website

Re: File system for Backup drive

Does your backup drive need to be read/write for Windows as well as Linux?  If so, ntfs is a good choice (using ntfs-3g on Linux of course). If it's Linux only, ext4 is what I'm using on my backup drive.

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Duologic

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2007-11-11

Posts: 249

Re: File system for Backup drive

I'm now started using XFS, it gave me a good impression of speed/big files handling, based on a benchmarking: http://linuxgazette.net/102/piszcz.html I still need to convert 2 other disks, LACIE Porsche drives: 250G and 360G. I did a little one earlier today with 2 partitions: 120G xfs + 40G fat32, so I can use it to play my windows games on the schoolnetwork ;-).
The backups only have to be accessed on a linux machine. I prefer a more robust file system than ext4, it is fairly new against xfs or jfs. I wont use ntfs for the same reason plus it isn't actually build with linux in mind.

graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,597

Website

Re: File system for Backup drive

xfs is nice, but it requires you to manually check and fix file system errors and it doesn't use fsck.

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Stitch

Member

Registered: 2009-06-10

Posts: 23

Re: File system for Backup drive

IMHO

ext3 - good, tested and slow.
ext4 - untested. Full stop.
jfs - good. Never had problems. But ... Does not seem to be actively developed at all. Not a good sign.
XFS is lesser of all evils. Natural choice at present time. Excellent tools. Fragmentation is higher then other Linux FSs.

ngoonee

Forum Fellow

From: Between Thailand and Singapore

Registered: 2009-03-17

Posts: 7,356

Re: File system for Backup drive

If its only for backup, then you probably wouldn't need journaling, ie. ext2 would give you more space and less overhead overall?

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Duologic

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2007-11-11

Posts: 249

Re: File system for Backup drive

I've been thinking about using ext2, but how well is it with big files? is it fast enough?
With XFS I also noticed when I mounted it with HAL/pcmanfm, I need to be root to write/read. Is that normal? It is not really a problem, because mostly lesser access means safer storage.

Solid1986Snake

Member

Registered: 2007-06-18

Posts: 258

Re: File system for Backup drive

I've been thinking about using ext2, but how well is it with big files? is it fast enough?
With XFS I also noticed when I mounted it with HAL/pcmanfm, I need to be root to write/read. Is that normal? It is not really a problem, because mostly lesser access means safer storage.

Think thats the case with all linux filesystems, because they remember the owner and permissions.

You can create a folder on your harddrive and then chown it to your user... than you should be able to write into it as a user...

fukawi2

Ex-Administratorino

From: .vic.au

Registered: 2007-09-28

Posts: 6,224

Website

Re: File system for Backup drive

For backups, I'd go with something ultra-safe like ext2/3. Using ext2 (without a journal) should be fast enough unless every second *really* counts.

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