On Mon, 08 Aug 2005 20:24:31 -0700, Richard Fish wrote:

> In the last year, I have run XFS, reiserfs v3, and ext3 on my laptop.
> I mostly agree with you, although XFS doesn't really replace entire
> files with zeros, just blocks that have been allocated but not written
> with actual data...so /var/log/messages is likely to get some zeros in
> the event of a bad crash.  Files that were not being written at the
> time of the crash are not affected.

XFS is good for a laptop as it is less likely to suffer a sudden failure
than a desktop, the battery acts as a UPS. As long as you run some sort
of battery monitor that shuts the computer down cleanly when battery
levels become critical, power loss should not be an issue.

> XFS: aggressively caches, so might give you some power 
> savings...although real-world savings are likely to be slight to none.  
> Nice features (the only one that offers a free defragmentation utility, 
> even if it is brain-damaged).  Cannot be shrunk, only grown.

However, it can be grown while mounted, something that is unsafe with the
other filesystems, and something the OP asked for.

> Reiserfs V3: Excellent performance for _some_operations, slower 
> performance for others.  Also can only be grown.

That's not correct. resize_reiserfs can shrink as well as grown, but the
filesystem must be unmounted.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Windows booting: insert CD-ROM 2.