Re: [gentoo-user] OT:Choosing a filesystem

[Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com>]

meino.cramer@gmx.de wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I googled down some - often fairly outdated - texts about "the
> best filesystem" fpr a Linux box. Other texts focussed on
> uses, which do not aplly to me: Fileservers, webservers, database
> machines  etc.
>
> Wnat I want is a fast and stable (!) filesystem for a desktop PC
> with one 1TByte harddisk. Since using Gentoo and a lot of sources
> I do compile very often "bigger things" (blender-2.50 for example).
> Another thing: Due to my experimenting it is possible that I have to
> reboot "hard", which means, the filesystem will be unmounted not
> cleanly ("dirty" do to say...;) The choosen filesystem should be
> good in recovering such thing.
>
> I am currently using a vanilla 2.6.32.10 kernel.
>
> The question, what remains is: What choose should I make?
>
> I thank you very much in advance for any help!
> Best regards,
> mcc
>
>    

I notice you have a fairly large drive.  You may want to indicate 
whether or not you will be putting large files on it or what not.  If 
you are, some files systems work better with large files.  That said, if 
you plan to have a lot of small files, then another file system may work 
better.  If you plan to have a mix, then it could get interesting.  ;-)

I use reiserfs myself and have had no problems, even with a hard 
shutdown or some other failure.  Thing is, most file systems are good 
but it depends on what you will be putting on it.  From my experience, 
don't use XFS unless you have a UPS and will not be having to pull the 
plug.  I tried XFS a while back and each time there was a hard shutdown, 
I had to reinstall.  It was running Mandriva so I didn't know how to 
recover with it and no other bootable CD either.   XFS has its good 
points but surviving a power plug pull is not one of them.

I will also say this, it is a good idea to ask first on this.  There are 
a lot of good file systems out there and each one has its strong 
points.  It's best to get the right one first rather than to have to 
redo things later on.

Dale

:-)  :-)