[Tfug] Filesystem suggestion

[John Hubbard]

On 06/15/2010 06:11 PM, John Gruenenfelder wrote:
> For many years now I've been using XFS.
>
> What do you use?  What do you have to compare it with
> and how well does it work?
>    
I have been using EXT4 for more than a year, and before that I was on 
EXT3. It writes files, and it reads files. I haven't had any problems 
but my usage isn't particularly heavy. I use an UPS so I haven't had any 
sudden power losses. I would say that I noticed far bigger improvements 
switching to a SSD than I did switching to EXT4 or even using a raid 
array (sw raid-5 with 4 WD Cavier Green Drives).
> So, what would you suggest for filesystem and drive arrangement?
If you use something other than raid-1 I am pretty sure that you will 
need to create a separate partition boot. You can't load the kernel to 
read sw-raid array until you have read the kernel on the sw-raid array; 
classic chicken and the egg problem. If you create a 128~256 MB boot 
partition and either raid-1 it or don't raid it at all you can work 
around all of these problems.
> BTW, even
> those most every MB has some sort of RAID "hardware" on it, I'll just be using
> the Linux kernel RAID as I'm familiar with it and it works fine, even though
> it means that my small Windows partition won't be able to partake of the RAID
> speed up.  Everything I've ever read on this list says those MB RAID solutions
> are not very good (although if anybody has something to say contrary to that,
> I'd like to hear that, too).
>    
As I understand it the raid on the MB is really just software raid that 
is implemented by the driver that windows uses. A number of years ago I 
had horrible problems with a 'hardware raid' setup on a windows machine. 
Using the raid driver included by default caused the drives to become 
corrupted and I had to reinstall. I thought that Windows 7 supported os 
level software raid. I haven't played with or installed Windows 7 so 
don't quote me on that.

On Linux I have noticed a little processor overhead when using SW raid. 
It only gets significant when I am doing large file transfers. I have 
though a few times about buying a true HW raid card but the notion of 
dropping $500 for a fancy LSI Raid controller just doesn't seem worth it 
for my uses at home.

Hope that this helps.

-- 
-john

To be or not to be, that is the question
                 2b || !2b
(0b10)*(0b1100010) || !(0b10)*(0b1100010)
         0b11000100 || !0b11000100
         0b11000100 || 0b00111011
                0b11111111
         255, that is the answer.