How to migrate completely to ext4

tinhtruong · 2009-02-15 02:07:28

I follow this guide http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ext4 and have successfully migrate my / partition (used to be ext3) to ext4. But on the wiki of Ext4 at http://kernelnewbies.org/Ext4 said:

3.2. Migrate existing Ext3 filesystems to Ext4
You need to use the tune2fs and fsck tools in the filesystem, and that filesystem needs to be unmounted. Run:
*
tune2fs -O extents,uninit_bg,dir_index /dev/yourfilesystem
After running this command you MUST run fsck. If you don't do it, Ext4 WILL NOT MOUNT your filesystem. This fsck run is needed to return the filesystem to a consistent state. It WILL tell you that it finds checksum errors in the group descriptors - it's expected, and it's exactly what it needs to be rebuilt to be able to mount it as Ext4, so don't get surprised by them. Since each time it finds one of those errors it asks you what to do, always say YES. If you don't want to be asked, add the "-p" parameter to the fsck command, it means "automatic repair":
*
fsck -pf /dev/yourfilesystem
There's another thing that must be mentioned. All your existing files will continue using the old indirect mapping to map all the blocks of data. The online defrag tool will be able to migrate each one of those files to a extent format (using a ioctl that tells the filesystem to rewrite the file with the extent format; you can use it safely while you're using the filesystem normally)

And I want all the existing files on my / to take advantage of ext4 for performance.
Any help are welcome.

Xyne · 2009-02-15 03:08:10

There's some info in http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=63228

Afaik, the official online defragmenter won't be released until kernel 2.6.29 (can someone confirm this?).

Arch Linux

#1 2009-02-15 02:07:28

How to migrate completely to ext4

#2 2009-02-15 03:08:10

Re: How to migrate completely to ext4

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