[Novalug] ext4 vs. ext3 vs. ext2

Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com
Mon Sep 7 14:06:07 EDT 2009


On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 10:41 AM, Jon LaBadie<novalugml@jgcomp.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 07, 2009 at 10:05:57AM -0400, Richard Ertel wrote:
>> thanks for the info, Kc. it is mainly a media server, so anything from
>> 5 MB mp3s to 200 MB tv episodes to 5 GB high-def movies. also stores
>> PDFs, windows software install binaries, photos, etc. very general
>> purpose.
>>
>> in the past, i have used ext2, as that was just what the LVM tutorial
>> showed me how to do. and the speed is fast. my concern is the sheer
>> number of files and directories that this volume will have to deal
>> with. will ext3's journaling help with that?
>
> It sounds like Richard's usage is "read mostly".
> Under those conditions, is journaling of much value?

Yeech.  Do you want your system to be inoperable for the better part
of a day after someone kicked the cable and caused it to be shut down
uncleanly?  Journaled metadata is a must for a volume that size.

5MB aren't small files.  Any of the modern filesystems should handle
this OKAY. If you're using a ext flavor filesystem and plan on having
directories with 10s of thousands of files in them make sure directory
indexing is enabled.

My personal recommendation would be XFS after many years of good
experience with it on many multiple tbyte systems.



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