> suggest and post back. Do you think btrfs (with or without compression)
> would be faster than reiser? If so I will try that as well.

On my system it is twice as fast as reiser3 for _lots_ (200.000) of
small files with compression on (didn't test is without compression). I
didn't test if with big files.

But your results may vary anyway. For example btrfs is very
cpu-intensive (even more with compression). If you've got a slow cpu
(like in embedded devices), jfs might perform better.

FWIW i finally re-ran my tests (CPU is 64 bit dual core Intel 2.4GHz);

Copy DVD iso from Internal drive (reiserfs) to external drive
reiserfs 1m24 1m23 1m23 1m22
ext4       1m39 1m25 1m25 1m25 remount 1m26 1m23 1m23 1m22
btrfs       1m22 1m22 1m22
btrfs+comp    1m20 1m21 1m20 1m21

Copy DVD iso on external drive
# sync; time (cp CentOS-5.3-x86_64-bin-DVD.iso CentOS-5.3-x86_64-bin-DVD.iso2; sync)
reiser      1m52 1m52 1m52
ext4           1m43 1m43 1m43 1m44 remount 1m33 1m33 1m33 1m42
btrfs           1m42 1m41 1m41 1m45 remount 1m46 1m41
btrfs+comp 1m34 1m33 1m34 (im guessing the driver is clever enough not to uncompress and recompress)