Need advice on file system.

Kenetixx · 2007-07-03 07:39:49

I got another couple of 300 gig HDD today and want migrate all my Movies and Music off ntfs and under a linux filesystem.
The question is what filesystem? was thinking xfs but havent really used it much.
File sizes will vary from 2 -5 Meg mp3's up to 4.5 gig ISO dvd rips. SO whats a good file system to use for a mixed array of file sizes?

Mikko777 · 2007-07-03 09:09:28

I think that ext3 is the way to go unless:

A: you run a corporate server.
B: know what your doing.

Think all the filesystems have their strenghts and weaknesses. And for home use I guess the simplest solution is ext3.
Atleast thats my conclusion.

samoturk · 2007-07-03 09:52:24

I use xfs for the multimedia files and it's great. I used ext3, but I lost some data. Then I tried reiser3. It worked great for couple of months then it got fragmented and it started to be really slow. Now I use xfs for more than year and a half and no problems at all.

kano · 2007-07-03 10:35:56

Do you have a battery backup? If so, go for XFS.
I used this little guide to tweak XFS performance:
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1479435

In short, when you create the FS
mkfs.xfs -l size=64m

and in your fstab, add the following options
noatime,nodiratime,logbufs=8,biosize=16

Last edited by kano (2007-07-03 10:41:24)

lucke · 2007-07-03 10:54:50

Yeah, for such partition I'd go with XFS.

Mikko777 · 2007-07-03 10:58:42

Are you people saying that it actually makes a normal system faster with XFS?

What are we talking here 1-2 secs? How about disadvantages? CPU use? Boots slower? More hassle to maintain?

Note those are questions not facts

kano · 2007-07-03 11:25:49

1) check the benchmarks on the xfs tweaking link i posted; i think there's ext3 to compare
2) disadvantages; there's been reports of data corruption if a file hasn't been written completely to disk and you lose power. but i believe this can happen with any meta-data journaled FS. personally, the 2 times my cat stepped on my battery backup and shut off my system, i had no corruption.
3) CPU use; it's suppose to be more cpu intensive than ext3, but in my personal experience it's so minimal you can't tell. i've done some pretty intensive disk operations and had very low cpu usage (hash checking 30gb of seeded torrents and copying a 10gb file between two XFS drives)
4) boot speed; same or faster than ext3. much faster than reiserfs at mounting
5) no hassle to maintain; XFS even has some very useful tools that no other linux filesystem has. Online Defragger (although like other linux fs's, it defrags itself with usage), dump/restore utilities, fragmentation checker, etc. the utilities are one of the main reasons i picked XFS for my root, media, and home partitions

broch · 2007-07-03 12:55:15

ext3 is known to lose frames (video editing).

xfs format flags I am using:
mkfs.xfs -l version=1,internal,size=128m -i size=2048,attr=2 -d unwritten=0,agcount=2 -f /dev/sda2

fstab flags:
/dev/sda2 / xfs defaults,nodiratime,noatime,logbufs=8,biosize=16 0 1

people for whatever reason are confusing SGI xfs and linux xfs. These are not the same fs. Mostly because linux kernel simply does not have similar capabilities/is not that "smart"

on any fs one can lose data, this never happened to me with xfs. Is it better than other linux fs? Depends.
I would say that if not xfs then jfs. Standard is ext3 soon ext4.

Arch Linux

#1 2007-07-03 07:39:49

Need advice on file system.

#2 2007-07-03 09:09:28

Re: Need advice on file system.

#3 2007-07-03 09:52:24

Re: Need advice on file system.

#4 2007-07-03 10:35:56

Re: Need advice on file system.

#5 2007-07-03 10:54:50

Re: Need advice on file system.

#6 2007-07-03 10:58:42

Re: Need advice on file system.

#7 2007-07-03 11:25:49

Re: Need advice on file system.

#8 2007-07-03 12:55:15

Re: Need advice on file system.

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