Re: [gentoo-dev] reiserfs

[Mark Bainter <mark-gt@cymry.org>]

Jean-Michel Smith [jsmith@kcco.com] wrote:
> recover from backup tapes.  Nevertheless it resulted in an allnighter getting 
> the system back up, on a more reliable ext2 filesystem, followed by several 
> days work as he moved other installations off of reiser and onto ext2 (his 

And I've spent all-nighters restoring from ext2 filesystems, simply because 
the system wasn't shut down properly.  

> I have personally witnessed data loss using reiser on numerous occasions ... 
> symptoms ranged from strange "undeletable" files that were corrupt, to entire 
> directory trees vanishing for no apparent reason (but the disk usage 
> remaining unchanged).  No recovery was possible in either case (short of 
> reconstructing a new filesystem from scratch and restoring from backups).

I just had strange undeletable files on my ext2 filesystem less than a 
week ago.  In fact, once I finally got it fixed, it happened two more times
that same night.  

You also suggested ext3.  Ext3 has been a disaster for me thus far.  It's
been the only filesystem I've had trouble with (outside of the typical
issues we're all used to with ext2).  However, I wouldn't go so far as to
say nobody should use it just because I and a few people I know have had
bad experiences with it.  I know there are people out there running it 
successfully but I wouldn't even trust it to hold my /tmp filesystem.

> In all these cases all of us had all been using reiserfs "for months with no 
> problems" ... and we still suffered severe data loss.
> 
> Reiserfs is NOT ready for production use, and the gentoo FAQ is both wise and 
> friendly for pointing that out and guiding people away from that particular 
> folly.

I just can't agree.  What exactly is your required time frame for running 
reiserfs with no problems before you think it's stable?  I personally have
been running reiserfs on my systems since before it was even merged into the
mainline kernel.  I work the hell out of my systems and I've never had a
problem.  

I've had it in production systems as well, for almost as long.  In systems
ranging from large, high load email servers, to web servers handling approx
1.5 million page views a month.  I've never had a problem with it.

I'm not trying to be insulting, but lets not forget the human factor in this
equation.  I don't really know you, or the people you cite, so please don't
take this as a slam on your skills, I'm just noting there's more to factor
in here than just the filesystem.  If you don't know reiserfs that well, and
just know ext2, or ext3 maybe you have less problems because of that, rather
than because of the relative quality of the two filesystems.