[gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Alexander Skwar]

Hello!

What filesystem(s) do you recommend for use on a notebook?
I'm looking for a FS that's fairly stable even if all of a
sudden the power goes away (battery empty) and one, that
also doesn't (overly) unneccesarily spin up the hard drive.

I don't think that I'll use Reiser4, as it's lacking an
online fs resizer. At least making the fs bigger should be
doable while the FS is mounted.

Thanks,

Alexander Skwar
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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Bob Sanders]

On Mon, 08 Aug 2005 23:40:36 +0200
Alexander Skwar <listen@alexander.skwar.name> wrote:

> Hello!
> 
> What filesystem(s) do you recommend for use on a notebook?
> I'm looking for a FS that's fairly stable even if all of a
> sudden the power goes away (battery empty) and one, that
> also doesn't (overly) unneccesarily spin up the hard drive.
> 

Any journaling filesystem is going to spin up the drive or keep it spinning.
And unless your drive is one of the 7200 rpm drives, it's still not the energy
hog that the LCD is.

> I don't think that I'll use Reiser4, as it's lacking an
> online fs resizer. At least making the fs bigger should be
> doable while the FS is mounted.
>

You're asking for Enterprise server features for a laptop?

fwiw - I use XFS on my laptop.  It survives fine with power going away.
But, if all the data is in the buffer and the drive is spun down, having the
power die will cause lost data regardless of filesystem.

Bob
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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Hi,
On Monday 08 August 2005 23:40, Alexander Skwar wrote:
> Hello!
>
> What filesystem(s) do you recommend for use on a notebook?
> I'm looking for a FS that's fairly stable even if all of a
> sudden the power goes away (battery empty) and one, that
> also doesn't (overly) unneccesarily spin up the hard drive.
>
> I don't think that I'll use Reiser4, as it's lacking an
> online fs resizer. At least making the fs bigger should be
> doable while the FS is mounted.


I do not have any direct experience, but from all that I read over the years I 
came to this:

XFS is very fragile, when the power is failing.
XFS will replace damaged files with zeros

this is both not acceptable.

Reiser4 is alpha code in motion.
I would not touch it with a 10 feet pole at the moment.

Well 4 filesystems left ;)
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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Richard Fish]

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

>Hi,
>On Monday 08 August 2005 23:40, Alexander Skwar wrote:
>  
>
>>Hello!
>>
>>What filesystem(s) do you recommend for use on a notebook?
>>I'm looking for a FS that's fairly stable even if all of a
>>sudden the power goes away (battery empty) and one, that
>>also doesn't (overly) unneccesarily spin up the hard drive.
>>
>>I don't think that I'll use Reiser4, as it's lacking an
>>online fs resizer. At least making the fs bigger should be
>>doable while the FS is mounted.
>>    
>>
>
>
>I do not have any direct experience, but from all that I read over the years I 
>came to this:
>
>XFS is very fragile, when the power is failing.
>XFS will replace damaged files with zeros
>
>this is both not acceptable.
>
>Reiser4 is alpha code in motion.
>I would not touch it with a 10 feet pole at the moment.
>
>Well 4 filesystems left ;)
>  
>

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.

Having run them all, my recommendation (and what I run currently) is 
ext3.  My soundbite summaries of each are:

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.

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

Ext3: Best journalling options available, including full-data 
journalling if you want it and do not mind the slowness.  Otherwise good 
performance for the opposite operations as reiserfs.  Can be grown or 
shrunk.

I do not know of any Linux filesystem that can be resized while still 
mounted.

-Richard

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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Michael Crute]

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Personally I would use ext3 and then hdparm to adjust the drive settings so 
that it spins down faster when there is no activity. That should give you 
the best of power saving and data reliability.

-Mike

On 8/8/05, Richard Fish <bigfish@asmallpond.org> wrote:
> 
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> 
> >Hi,
> >On Monday 08 August 2005 23:40, Alexander Skwar wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Hello!
> >>
> >>What filesystem(s) do you recommend for use on a notebook?
> >>I'm looking for a FS that's fairly stable even if all of a
> >>sudden the power goes away (battery empty) and one, that
> >>also doesn't (overly) unneccesarily spin up the hard drive.
> >>
> >>I don't think that I'll use Reiser4, as it's lacking an
> >>online fs resizer. At least making the fs bigger should be
> >>doable while the FS is mounted.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >I do not have any direct experience, but from all that I read over the 
> years I
> >came to this:
> >
> >XFS is very fragile, when the power is failing.
> >XFS will replace damaged files with zeros
> >
> >this is both not acceptable.
> >
> >Reiser4 is alpha code in motion.
> >I would not touch it with a 10 feet pole at the moment.
> >
> >Well 4 filesystems left ;)
> >
> >
> 
> 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.
> 
> Having run them all, my recommendation (and what I run currently) is
> ext3. My soundbite summaries of each are:
> 
> 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.
> 
> Reiserfs V3: Excellent performance for _some_operations, slower
> performance for others. Also can only be grown.
> 
> Ext3: Best journalling options available, including full-data
> journalling if you want it and do not mind the slowness. Otherwise good
> performance for the opposite operations as reiserfs. Can be grown or
> shrunk.
> 
> I do not know of any Linux filesystem that can be resized while still
> mounted.
> 
> -Richard
> 
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> 
> 


-- 
________________________________
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Software Developer
SoftGroup Development Corporation

"In a world without walls and fences, who needs windows and gates?"

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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Neil Bothwick]

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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.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Ow Mun Heng]

On Mon, 2005-08-08 at 18:30 -0700, Bob Sanders wrote:
> On Mon, 08 Aug 2005 23:40:36 +0200
> Alexander Skwar <listen@alexander.skwar.name> wrote:
> 
> > Hello!
> > 
> > What filesystem(s) do you recommend for use on a notebook?
> > I'm looking for a FS that's fairly stable even if all of a
> > sudden the power goes away (battery empty) and one, that
> > also doesn't (overly) unneccesarily spin up the hard drive.
> > 
> 
> Any journaling filesystem is going to spin up the drive or keep it spinning.
> And unless your drive is one of the 7200 rpm drives, it's still not the energy
> hog that the LCD is.

For spinning down and power savings, I recommend using laptop_mode. (You
can see the article I wrote for the MyOSS Magazine (Ed2 I think)
(http:/mag.my-opensource.org) which I wrote about some of the items
which you can use for POwer management in Linux. (also read in Ed4,
Gnome-Power-Manager written by Richard Hughes, the lead developer)



> 
> fwiw - I use XFS on my laptop.  It survives fine with power going away.
> But, if all the data is in the buffer and the drive is spun down, having the
> power die will cause lost data regardless of filesystem.

I too use XFS for my Home Directory. I think I've suffered 1 instance of
curruption in the entire 2 years I've had this laptop. (Touch Wood)

> Bob
> -  

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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[A. R.]

On 8/9/05, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:

(snip)

> 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.
> 

Absolutely.
I have been using XFS in my IBM Thinkpad for months now without any problems. 
XFS seems to be well suited for laptop use when things are configured
as you just described.

Regards, 

- AR


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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Mike Williams]

On Tuesday 09 August 2005 14:42, Mauro Faccenda wrote:
> >>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.
>
> That's not orrect. resize_reiserfs can resize with the filesystem mounted.

That's not correct. correct is spelt correct. Oh, and reiserfs can be grown 
while mounted, but not shrunk while mounted :)

-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Mauro Faccenda]

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

>>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.

That's not orrect. resize_reiserfs can resize with the filesystem mounted.

[]'s
	Mauro
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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Dirk Heinrichs]

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Am Dienstag, 9. August 2005 15:42 schrieb ext Mauro Faccenda:
> Neil Bothwick wrote:
> > On Mon, 08 Aug 2005 20:24:31 -0700, Richard Fish wrote:
> >>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.
>
> That's not orrect. resize_reiserfs can resize with the filesystem
> mounted.

That's also not correct. I guess what Neil wanted to say is: reiserfs can be 
grown online, but needs to be unmounted for shrinking.

Bye...

	Dirk
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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 09 Aug 2005 10:42:42 -0300, Mauro Faccenda wrote:

> > That's not correct. resize_reiserfs can shrink as well as grow, but
> > the filesystem must be unmounted.
> 
> That's not orrect. resize_reiserfs can resize with the filesystem
> mounted.

It can grow but not shrink while mounted. I was referring to shrinking.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Is that "woof" feed me; "woof" walk me; "woof" there's a burglar? What??

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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Richard Fish]

Neil Bothwick wrote:

>>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.
>  
>

Thanks for the correction.  I'm trying to figure out what I read that 
led me to believe reiserfs could not be shrunk....

-Richard

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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 09 Aug 2005 08:09:41 -0700, Richard Fish wrote:

> Thanks for the correction.  I'm trying to figure out what I read that 
> led me to believe reiserfs could not be shrunk....

Probably the output from resize_reiserfs when you try to shrink. Dire
warnings about beta-quality software and the dangers of hair loss and
organ shrinkage :)


-- 
Neil Bothwick

It's only a hobby ... only a hobby ... only a

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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Billy Holmes]

Richard Fish wrote:

> In the last year, I have run XFS, reiserfs v3, and ext3 on my laptop.  I 

I've ran xfs, jfs, reiserfs v3 and v4, and ext3.

jfs on a firewire drive is a bad idea. When it crashes, it crashes hard. 
No amount of recovery was helpful. In the end, a week old backup, and a 
reformat with a new filesystem got me back to production.

XFS has been very good to me. I like the performance, and power outages 
have done nothing to the integrity of the file data.

reiserfs3 is good for some things. It treats lots of small files really 
well. Large files aren't a problem either. It eats major CPU cycles 
compared to other filesystems.

reiser4 is faster when it comes to throughput, and certain non-realworld 
scenarios, such as creating tens of thousands of directories, or 
deleting millions of files. Eats CPU cycles like there is no tomorrow. 
Not a good filesystem for a highly interactive desktop. If your concern 
is throughput, and you don't need interactivity (a file server in a 
closet, enclosed in cement) then it would probably make you very happy - 
provided you don't get burned when a new kernel revision comes out that 
totally breaks it.

ext3 uses the least cpu of all the filesystems. It's not at snappy as 
xfs or reiser4, but the code base is very stable when it comes to linux. 
There are also many, many (did I mention many?) utilities, documents, 
and guru's out there that can help you rebuild your ext3 filesystem in 
case it really eats itself.

I use ext3 on an external harddrive, as I believe in the data recovery 
aspects of ext3. For my desktop machines, I use xfs. For servers, I use 
ext3 unless I really feel I need the extra performance, then I use xfs.

> I do not know of any Linux filesystem that can be resized while still 
> mounted.

$ man xfs_growfs

[snip]
xfs_growfs expands an existing XFS filesystem (see xfs(5)). The 
mountpoint argument is the pathname of the directory where the 
filesystem is mounted. The filesystem must be mounted to be grown (see 
mount(8)). The existing contents of the filesystem are undisturbed, and 
  the added space becomes available for additional file storage.
[snip]

you *must* have the filesystem mounted in order to use xfs_growfs. XFS 
lends itself VERY well to lvm2 (which also runs on all my desktops).
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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Christian Parpart]

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On Tuesday 09 August 2005 20:14, Billy Holmes wrote:
[....]
> I use ext3 on an external harddrive, as I believe in the data recovery
> aspects of ext3. For my desktop machines, I use xfs. For servers, I use
> ext3 unless I really feel I need the extra performance, then I use xfs.

You really *do* speak out of my mind ;-) Well, I share the same oppinions 
about these FSs and have the same fs setups as you (obviousely!).

> > I do not know of any Linux filesystem that can be resized while still
> > mounted.
>
> $ man xfs_growfs
[...]
> you *must* have the filesystem mounted in order to use xfs_growfs. XFS
> lends itself VERY well to lvm2 (which also runs on all my desktops).

This confused me the first time I wanted to growfs my /home; However, it has 
been a little bit funny aswell, as ext3 (originally) only supported offline 
growings.

However, I once have (accidently!) thrown down one harddrive of mine from 
within 60cm distance down while moving to a new tower/rac; I were nearly 
crying about, but before, I quickly invoked fsck.xfs on my LVM (which this 
disk is part of) and *really* got confused.
fsck.xfs is really a no-op. I couldn't figure out yet why. I can now just pray 
that everything seems to go just well (as it does till now ;)

Regards,
Christian Parpart.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Tuesday 09 August 2005 20:46, Christian Parpart wrote:

> However, I once have (accidently!) thrown down one harddrive of mine from
> within 60cm distance down while moving to a new tower/rac; I were nearly
> crying about, but before, I quickly invoked fsck.xfs on my LVM (which this
> disk is part of) and *really* got confused.
> fsck.xfs is really a no-op. I couldn't figure out yet why. I can now just
> pray that everything seems to go just well (as it does till now ;)

hm, some harddisks tell you in their smart-data, if the shock was over a 
certain safety threshold. Maybe you should use your copy of smartmontools and 
copy your data onto a different disk ;)
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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Bob Sanders]

On Tue, 09 Aug 2005 17:33:27 +0800
Ow Mun Heng <Ow.Mun.Heng@wdc.com> wrote:


> 
> I too use XFS for my Home Directory. I think I've suffered 1 instance of
> curruption in the entire 2 years I've had this laptop. (Touch Wood)
> 

Perhaps I should mention one of the main reasons I use XFS - the tools.  Performance
is not a reason.  Reliability is a reason.  And the tools.

xfs_check and xfs_repair are about the best I've seen.  No, if your LVM superblock is
trashed, they won't fix it.  They fix the filesystem, not the disk/partition structure.

And xfs_dump/xfs_restore make cloning a partition very easy.  Given all the discussion
in this list alone about cloning drives, I'm really surprised more people don't adopt XFS
just for this issue alone.

Disclaimer - yes I work for SGI.  No I don't develop, I break software.  And I pull plugs
on running systems.  So any advice I give here on anything related to SGI products
should be treated with caution. No, I don't speak for SGI.  And yes I really do use XFS
on almost all my systems - Trying ext3 on a Kurobox (200 MHz PPC runnng Gentoo) and
RiserFS on one of the desktop x86 systems.

Bob
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Re: [gentoo-user] Dropping harddrives (WAS Which filesystem for a notebook?)

[Billy Holmes]

Christian Parpart wrote:
> However, I once have (accidently!) thrown down one harddrive of mine from 
> within 60cm distance down while moving to a new tower/rac; I were nearly 

many moons ago, I had a 300 meg IDE drive that I bought for a dollar - 
and this was when drives sold for about a buck a megabyte. A lady 
brought in her computer with a broken harddrive. It would not spin up, 
but after I accidently dropped it on the table, it started working. We 
replaced her HD, and I asked the owner if I could buy the broken HD for 
a dollar.

I stuck it in my BBS machine at the time, and it lasted 2 years for me. 
It would work great so long as I did not power down the machine, then I 
had to tap the harddrive, or bang it with a pen while it was trying to 
power up. One day the power went out, and when it came back on, the HD 
would not spin up despite my "tender care" - it had died. I knew that 
day would come, so I had current backups.

They just don't make them like they used to :)
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Re: [gentoo-user] Dropping harddrives (WAS Which filesystem for a notebook?)

[Chad Leigh -- Shire.Net LLC]

On Aug 10, 2005, at 9:49 AM, Billy Holmes wrote:

> Christian Parpart wrote:
>
>> However, I once have (accidently!) thrown down one harddrive of  
>> mine from within 60cm distance down while moving to a new tower/ 
>> rac; I were nearly
>>
>
> many moons ago, I had a 300 meg IDE drive that I bought for a  
> dollar - and this was when drives sold for about a buck a megabyte.  
> A lady brought in her computer with a broken harddrive. It would  
> not spin up, but after I accidently dropped it on the table, it  
> started working. We replaced her HD, and I asked the owner if I  
> could buy the broken HD for a dollar.
>
> I stuck it in my BBS machine at the time, and it lasted 2 years for  
> me. It would work great so long as I did not power down the  
> machine, then I had to tap the harddrive, or bang it with a pen  
> while it was trying to power up. One day the power went out, and  
> when it came back on, the HD would not spin up despite my "tender  
> care" - it had died. I knew that day would come, so I had current  
> backups.
>
> They just don't make them like they used to :)

Probably was suffering from "stiction"  (google it)

Chad

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>
>

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Re: [gentoo-user] Dropping harddrives (WAS Which filesystem for a notebook?)

[Billy Holmes]

Chad Leigh -- Shire.Net LLC wrote:

> Probably was suffering from "stiction"  (google it)

I'm pretty sure this HD had autoparking heads (I'm almost positive all 
IDE drives have). I could see it being a problem if it was an MFM drive 
however...
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Re: [gentoo-user] Dropping harddrives (WAS Which filesystem for a notebook?)

[Chad Leigh -- Shire.Net LLC]

On Aug 10, 2005, at 10:14 AM, Billy Holmes wrote:

> Chad Leigh -- Shire.Net LLC wrote:
>
>
>> Probably was suffering from "stiction"  (google it)
>>
>
> I'm pretty sure this HD had autoparking heads (I'm almost positive  
> all IDE drives have). I could see it being a problem if it was an  
> MFM drive however...

stiction occurred with drives with autoparking heads...   They just  
park on special zones of the drive that do not contain data

Chad


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>
>

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Re: [gentoo-user] Dropping harddrives (WAS Which filesystem for a notebook?)

[Craig Zeigler]

Billy Holmes wrote:

> Chad Leigh -- Shire.Net LLC wrote:
>
>> Probably was suffering from "stiction"  (google it)
>
>
> I'm pretty sure this HD had autoparking heads (I'm almost positive all 
> IDE drives have). I could see it being a problem if it was an MFM 
> drive however...

Not all IDE drives have/had autopark heads. I know this was many many 
moons ago, but the first couple hard drives I owned <50MB didn't have 
autopark heads. you had to tell it to park the heads, and I know they 
were IDE drives cause I still have them around. :)
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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Fernando Meira]

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Hi,

I been moving my gentoo system to other partition (ran out of space). 
My old partition ran reiserfs 3.6 and due to this discussion, I've decided 
to run ext3 in the new partition. Still to find out if it was a wise 
decision...
Anyway, the first thing I noticed was this:

# df
/dev/hda1 10080488 4406076 5162344 47% /mnt/gentoo
/dev/hda4 4763112 3948116 814996 83% /mnt/old

With exactly the same things in both sides, it seems that ext3 requires 
*much* more space ~450M.
Can this be right, or I messed up somewhere...??

Cheers,
Fernando

On 8/9/05, Bob Sanders <rmsand@concentric.net> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 09 Aug 2005 17:33:27 +0800
> Ow Mun Heng <Ow.Mun.Heng@wdc.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> >
> > I too use XFS for my Home Directory. I think I've suffered 1 instance of
> > curruption in the entire 2 years I've had this laptop. (Touch Wood)
> >
> 
> Perhaps I should mention one of the main reasons I use XFS - the tools. 
> Performance
> is not a reason. Reliability is a reason. And the tools.
> 
> xfs_check and xfs_repair are about the best I've seen. No, if your LVM 
> superblock is
> trashed, they won't fix it. They fix the filesystem, not the 
> disk/partition structure.
> 
> And xfs_dump/xfs_restore make cloning a partition very easy. Given all the 
> discussion
> in this list alone about cloning drives, I'm really surprised more people 
> don't adopt XFS
> just for this issue alone.
> 
> Disclaimer - yes I work for SGI. No I don't develop, I break software. And 
> I pull plugs
> on running systems. So any advice I give here on anything related to SGI 
> products
> should be treated with caution. No, I don't speak for SGI. And yes I 
> really do use XFS
> on almost all my systems - Trying ext3 on a Kurobox (200 MHz PPC runnng 
> Gentoo) and
> RiserFS on one of the desktop x86 systems.
> 
> Bob
> -
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> 
>

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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 11:29:18 +0000, Fernando Meira wrote:

> # df
> /dev/hda1 10080488 4406076 5162344 47% /mnt/gentoo
> /dev/hda4 4763112 3948116 814996 83% /mnt/old
> 
> With exactly the same things in both sides, it seems that ext3 requires 
> *much* more space ~450M.
> Can this be right, or I messed up somewhere...??

It's right if you have a lot of small files. Reiserfs uses tail packing
(unless mounted with the notail option) to greatly reduce the amount of
space occupied by small files, at the expense of some performance.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Just don't give away the homeworld!

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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Fernando Meira]

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Ok, so then reiserfs is a good choice when disk-space is a limitation.
In the Gentoo Handbook is stated that reiserfs greatly outperforms ext3 when 
dealing with some files, often by a factor of 10x-15x. But what about "big" 
files?

I might just redo my moving process and turn the new partition to reiserfs.
Fernando

On 8/13/05, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 11:29:18 +0000, Fernando Meira wrote:
> 
> > # df
> > /dev/hda1 10080488 4406076 5162344 47% /mnt/gentoo
> > /dev/hda4 4763112 3948116 814996 83% /mnt/old
> >
> > With exactly the same things in both sides, it seems that ext3 requires
> > *much* more space ~450M.
> > Can this be right, or I messed up somewhere...??
> 
> It's right if you have a lot of small files. Reiserfs uses tail packing
> (unless mounted with the notail option) to greatly reduce the amount of
> space occupied by small files, at the expense of some performance.
> 
> 
> --
> Neil Bothwick
> 
> Just don't give away the homeworld!
> 
> 
>

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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 12:24:06 +0000, Fernando Meira wrote:

> Ok, so then reiserfs is a good choice when disk-space is a limitation.
> In the Gentoo Handbook is stated that reiserfs greatly outperforms ext3
> when dealing with some files, often by a factor of 10x-15x. But what
> about "big" files?

It depends what you mean by "big". I tend to think of raw video and DVD
ISO images as big, and XFS has a definite advantage there, but you don't
deal with those when disk-space is a limitation. For tens of MB files,
reiserfs is fine.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

"Bother," said Pooh, more from force of habit than anything else.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Uwe Thiem]

On 13 August 2005 12:29, Fernando Meira wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I been moving my gentoo system to other partition (ran out of space).
> My old partition ran reiserfs 3.6 and due to this discussion, I've decided
> to run ext3 in the new partition. Still to find out if it was a wise
> decision...
> Anyway, the first thing I noticed was this:
>
> # df
> /dev/hda1 10080488 4406076 5162344 47% /mnt/gentoo
> /dev/hda4 4763112 3948116 814996 83% /mnt/old
>
> With exactly the same things in both sides, it seems that ext3 requires
> *much* more space ~450M.
> Can this be right, or I messed up somewhere...??

ReiserFS packs small files more efficiently. That's the difference you are 
seeing.

Uwe

-- 
95% of all programmers rate themselves among the top 5% of all software 
developers. - Linus Torvalds

http://www.uwix.iway.na (last updated: 20.06.2004)
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Re: [gentoo-user] Which filesystem for a notebook?

[Alexander Skwar]

Richard Fish schrieb:
> Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

>>Reiser4 is alpha code in motion.
>>I would not touch it with a 10 feet pole at the moment.

On my normal home system, I use reiser4 and don't have any
bad experiences with it - yet *G*

> I do not know of any Linux filesystem that can be resized while still 
> mounted.

All (besides reiser4 and ext* without patches) can be resized while
mounted.
Ie. XFS, JFS & reiser3 can be resized. The only FS that
(right now) cannot at all be resized is reiser4, since there's
just no resizer tool available.

Alexander Skwar
-- 
printk(KERN_ERR "%s: Something Wicked happened! %4.4x.\n",...);
        linux-2.6.6/drivers/net/sundance.c
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