Michael Marsh writes: > I have heard that reiserfs is better than ext3 for data integrity and > for speed. Should i consider this for my new installation? Alexander Dalloz writes: > We had this topic already some months ago here on the list. Alexander is referring to a discussion which you can find at: http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2004-April/msg04733.html I am also curious about *recent* experiences with reiserfs ; my main concern is data loss, and the circumstances in which it occurs. Bad experiences using experimental kernels do not necessarily indicate poor behavior with stable kernels. I am starting to use reiserfs for storing rsync-style backups ( see www.dirvish.org ) and note that reiserfs uses diskspace much more efficiently. rsync uses hardlinks to merge images; the resulting partition contains huge numbers of small directory files, which store much more efficiently using reiserfs . This means I may be able to store 2 or 3 times as many backup images on a partition. There is also the advantage of dynamic inode creation, rather than the fixed amount created by ext2/3 . One of my 250GB backup hard drives got built with 8KB/inode, rather than 4KB/inode; as a result, all the inodes got used up with only 173GB of data space used. Reiser makes up inodes as it goes along, so I should be able to pour data into a reiserfs file system until the whole partition is used up. I am also curious about XFS and JFS and other alternatives. I get the impression that all of these next-generation journalling file systems are somewhat experimental. I would be glad to trade off 20% image capacity and 50% of the speed for something that is rock solid for error tolerance and recovery. ext3 is stable, but I trade off far too much image capacity for that (possibly small) extra stability. I need something that efficiently stores small files; reiserfs, with redundant drives if necessary, may still be the best choice. Keith -- Keith Lofstrom keithl@xxxxxxxxxx Voice (503)-520-1993 KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon" Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs
