Which file system do you prefer?

sablabra

sablabra

sablabra

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I've been fooling around with a few distros the last week, but I can't help but wonder which file system I should use. :confused: So far I've been using ext3, but would any of the other file systems be any faster? What are the pros and cons for each file system? I'm only using linux as a desktop computer, no server use so far. :)

Thanks.
 
I haven't really got any preference but i'm interested it what people will say, I'm not sure how much difference there is in performance between say ext2 and ext3. I currently use ext2 for ubuntu, this is handy for me because i can access the entire partition from windows, i'm not sure if this can be done with ext3 yet though so i'm not sure if this is a real advantage or not.
 
ext3 works fine in windows with the ext2 driver (ext3 just adds journaling i think). Ext3 (and 2) is really good for larger files BUT has a minimum file size of 4kb which means it can be a little inappropreate for a large amount of really small files, like small config files.

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=4 covers a little bit on this if your interested in ext3 alternatives.....
 
eXor said:
Ext3 on all partitions, each neatly wrapped in a LUKS cocoon.

The journal safety net gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling.
Click to expand...

Do you find LUKS to have much a performance impact? I would really like to use it on Arch, but the wiki guide for it didnt seem the clearest of guides, but is it suitable for a daily use desktop/multimedia OS, i.e much impacts on disk IO speeds?
 
tntcoder said:
Do you find LUKS to have much a performance impact? I would really like to use it on Arch, but the wiki guide for it didnt seem the clearest of guides, but is it suitable for a daily use desktop/multimedia OS, i.e much impacts on disk IO speeds?
Click to expand...

If there is a performance imact, it is barely perceptible. Hard drives are quite fast these days. I found an old benchmark on google.

What's not clear in the guide? I found it quite straightforward and simple to implement.

I have encrypted root, swap and data partitions. During boot up, I'm prompted for a passphrase for the root partition. I have stored keys for the other two partitions on the encrypted root partition so that I don't have to enter three passphrases. Since there is a boot up passphrase, I just boot straight into X, bypassing login.
 
eXor said:
If there is a performance imact, it is barely perceptible. Hard drives are quite fast these days. I found an old benchmark on google.

What's not clear in the guide? I found it quite straightforward and simple to implement.

I have encrypted root, swap and data partitions. During boot up, I'm prompted for a passphrase for the root partition. I have stored keys for the other two partitions on the encrypted root partition so that I don't have to enter three passphrases. Since there is a boot up passphrase, I just boot straight into X, bypassing login.
Click to expand...

Ok thanks, I will give it a test run and see how far i get :)
 
Ok, so I should really just stick to ext3? But if I want to convert my computer into only using linux (getting rid of vista dualboot), would it be wise to format all my ntfs partitions used for storing stuff (games, apps, movies, music etc.) to ext3?

I'm not quite familiar with the file system used in linux yet. Normally I would use one partition for windows, one for apps/games and one or two for downloaded stuff. With the linux distros I've tested so far I've set up one called / which I guess is the root thingy, one called swap for swap file and one called home for documents etc. But could I make another ext3 partition or two only for downloaded stuff? I'd hate to lose all my files every time I reinstall linux...
 
Just set up a partition to be mounted as a folder like /home/(your name)/downloads or something like that. Its a slightly different way to the default windows way but is a little more tidy (and is separate from your install aka you can do reinstalls and just remount the partition as that folder).
 
pingwing said:
Just set up a partition to be mounted as a folder like /home/(your name)/downloads or something like that. Its a slightly different way to the default windows way but is a little more tidy (and is separate from your install aka you can do reinstalls and just remount the partition as that folder).
Click to expand...

OK I'll give that a go. But the partition I'm mounting, is there any advantage in making it ext3 or should I just stick with ntfs?
 
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Moredhel said:
ZFS, the ability to export and import entire ZFS partitions to and from files is brilliant.
Click to expand...

Another vote over here for ZFS

Only really useable on solaris at the moment though and not really for a beginner... (that said, the ZFS/Solaris/RAIDZ web management tool is fantastic)
 
linux - reiserfs (speed, speed, speed baby!)
solaris - zfs (can't beat it, really)
windows - ntfs (is there any other competitor?)
ESX - vmfs (duh!)
 
.walls said:
linux - reiserfs (speed, speed, speed baby!)
solaris - zfs (can't beat it, really)
windows - ntfs (is there any other competitor?)
ESX - vmfs (duh!)
Click to expand...

So I take it reiserfs would be the fastest one then? Are there any major downsides to reiserfs when comparing it to ext3?
 
The main downside to reiserfs is that the developer of it (Hans Reiser) has just been found guilty of murdering his wife, and is looking at 25 to life, although he's not yet been sentenced.
 
ReiserFS is getting a version 4 by a company called Namesys though according to Wiki. It's just unfortunate that it'll be forever linked with a man who committed murder.

I started with ReiserFS but I've moved on to using Ext3 now due to a lot of the major distributions using it.
 
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