JFS too slow!

Mountainjew · 2010-05-29 14:12:32

So the last time i reinstalled Arch, i decided to try out JFS.

One thing i've noticed over Reiserfs and ext4, is that it's incredibly slow. Every music player i've used, from Amarok, Rhythmbox & MPD has been crap. For example, in Sonata, when i'm trying to navigate between artists, it takes about 20 seconds to go back to all artists. It has been the same story with other players. Amarok, when i used it took 2 mins to startup. And the guys on #amarok had me run some command which showed the delay was the filesystem, and assumed i was using NFS, which i definately am not.

In Nautilus too, i find navigating my NTFS drives a lot faster than JFS. It's incredibly laggy in ~/. It's been that way since i installed it, so i don't think it's a fragmentation issue.

Anyway, my main gripe is my music, which i have structured like:

---Music
-------------A-Z
-------------------Artist
----------------------------Album

I've tried looking around for some tweaks to fstab for JFS but couldn't find much...

Here's my fstab

# 
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
#
# <file system>        <dir>         <type>    <options>          <dump> <pass>
none                   /dev/pts      devpts    defaults            0      0
none                   /dev/shm      tmpfs     defaults            0      0

#/dev/cdrom             /media/cd   auto    ro,user,noauto,unhide   0      0
#/dev/dvd               /media/dvd  auto    ro,user,noauto,unhide   0      0
#/dev/fd0               /media/fl   auto    user,noauto             0      0

UUID=f973a3b7-3cd5-4885-8ce7-c555731240cd / jfs defaults,noatime 0 1
UUID=175a2210-44b5-4b5b-9091-39fa25f78404 /var reiserfs defaults,noatime 0 1
UUID=2cece659-17c2-492f-91d1-76c12f417f18 swap swap defaults 0 0
UUID=f73b84a4-b840-45e2-880b-ac2f06c96043 /home jfs defaults,noatime 0 1
UUID=1496B9E496B9C690  /media/Music   ntfs-3g  defaults,noatime  0 0
UUID=167C499F7C497A8F  /media/Windows   ntfs-3g  defaults,noatime  0 0
UUID=FACE956FCE9524C3  /media/Stuff   ntfs-3g  defaults,noatime  0 0
UUID=70424E76424E4158  /media/Storage   ntfs-3g  defaults,noatime  0 0
UUID=92167E8A167E6F5B  /media/Random   ntfs-3g  defaults,noatime  0 0

Not sure what else i can do, apart from backing up my home partition and change the filesystem. If i were to do that btw, would it just be a matter of changing the fs type in fstab? And the UUID, after formatting obviously...

KimTjik · 2010-05-29 15:32:37

I've been using JFS for years and haven't noticed any such delays. It's maybe not the fastest for small files, which make itself known when browsing /usr/bin/, but for my media collections, mainly consisting of flac files, it's really fast. Hence I don't know what went wrong with you install, especially since you describe it as a general issue on your system.

I view JFS as one of the overall best of the old file systems, and I'm probably only switching when I decide it's time to take on btrfs.

rusty99 · 2010-05-29 18:03:23

Try appending elevator=deadline to your kernel entry in /boot/grub/menu.lst.

theapodan · 2010-05-29 20:11:33

rusty99 wrote:

Try appending elevator=deadline to your kernel entry in /boot/grub/menu.lst.

You can also do this on the fly per device, like so:

echo deadline > /sys/block/sd?/queue/scheduler

PS: My system was all JFS but I switched over to ext4 for / and /var since I heard it was faster. Ext4 isn't noticably faster and JFS seemed more resilient. I never bothered migrating /home or any data partitions.

Last edited by theapodan (2010-05-29 20:14:50)

Mountainjew · 2010-05-29 20:20:32

Yeah my linux music folder is all mp3, so i guess that's probably why if it's not good with small files.

I'm already using deadline scheduler, i've tried every scheduler possible, but they're all pretty much the same with filesystem performance.

I guess i'll just try formatting my home partiton and hope i don't screw it up.

rransom · 2010-05-29 23:35:13

Run:

cat /proc/scsi/sg/device_strs

and post the output here.

Mountainjew · 2010-05-30 01:29:13

Here's the output...

ATA         Hitachi HDP72505    GM4O
ATA         Maxtor 6V320F0      VA11
ATA         SAMSUNG HD103SJ     1AJ1
ATA         Hitachi HDP72505    GM4O
_NEC        DVD_RW ND-4570A     1.Z2
ATA         Hitachi HDT72101    ST6O

rransom · 2010-05-30 02:00:47

Your Hitachi and Samsung drives have 512-byte (physical) sectors, and the Maxtor website does not seem to specify the physical sector size of your Maxtor drive, so you probably don't need to worry about the partition alignment issues that got me. The Samsung website has a firmware upgrade for your Samsung drive; I have no idea whether that would help.

mandog · 2010-05-31 09:02:46

I've used jfs for years its is very fast even on small files its as fast as most, ext3 is dog slow ext4 is not stable and suffers data loss at times.
I have 100gb of music never have a speed issue with jfs.

Last edited by mandog (2010-05-31 09:05:38)

seiichiro0185 · 2010-05-31 12:20:04

I also use jfs for all of my partitions and it works fast and reliable. No problem with my about 7000 MP3s or any other data I have lying around. All is fast and smooth, more than it was on ext3 and ext4 which I used before.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-05-29 14:12:32

JFS too slow!

#2 2010-05-29 15:32:37

Re: JFS too slow!

#3 2010-05-29 18:03:23

Re: JFS too slow!

#4 2010-05-29 20:11:33

Re: JFS too slow!

#5 2010-05-29 20:20:32

Re: JFS too slow!

#6 2010-05-29 23:35:13

Re: JFS too slow!

#7 2010-05-30 01:29:13

Re: JFS too slow!

#8 2010-05-30 02:00:47

Re: JFS too slow!

#9 2010-05-31 09:02:46

Re: JFS too slow!

#10 2010-05-31 12:20:04

Re: JFS too slow!

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