<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 3:32 PM, Raymond McLaughlin <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:driveray@ameritech.net">driveray@ameritech.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im">Bob Kline wrote:<br>
><br>
><br>
> On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Raymond McLaughlin<br>
><br>
</div><div class="im">> This is why XFS is my filesystem of choice, especially for large<br>
> volumes. Some folks like to stick with a small ext3 volume for the OS<br>
> itself, and there are valid reasons for this selection. But for big<br>
> (>30G) filesystems XFS is really the way to go.<br>
><br>
> Raymond McLaughlin<br>
><br>
><br>
> Please elaborate.<br>
<br>
</div>First off I should admit to a sort of bias. I have been active in the<br>
Metro Detroit Linux Users Group for over 10 years, MDLUG was started<br>
among SGI employees, and XFS was open sourced to Linux at about that<br>
time. In this context I have to say I started using XFS on the<br>
recommendation of people who know more about it than I do.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> XFS can be checked<br>
> much faster, but just as thoroughly in<br>
> some sense?<br>
<br>
</div>The MUCH faster fsk on XFS is the main attraction. Rarely more than a<br>
few seconds delay at startup. As far a thoroughness, I'm not sure how to<br>
quantify that. I've never lost a filesystem due to a crash. Individual<br>
files sometimes, when a power cord got yanked during a write. There's<br>
really no practical way to avoid that.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> What are the "valid reasons?"<br>
<br>
</div>The main consideration is that, to maintain compatibility with the Irix<br>
implementation, Linux XFS always starts writing the file system in the<br>
first sector of the device it is written to. This makes it incompatible<br>
with installing GRUB (or LILO for that matter) into boot sector of such<br>
an XFS partition. As long as you can install the boot loader elsewhere,<br>
MBR, another partition or another device, then XFS can be used for<br>
boot/root filesystems.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> As in, I don't know a thing about it, so a<br>
> small word salad about what it is, and its<br>
> virtues and advantages over ext3, would<br>
> be appreciated.<br> </div>
<br>
Ray<br>
<div><div></div> <br></div></blockquote><div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XFS">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XFS</a><br><br>More and more, Wikipedia should be<br>one of the first places to look for things<br>Linux, but I didn't before. The link above<br>
adds some detail about XFS.<br><br>Also <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS</a><br><br>See the section about Linux, but don't<br>hold your breath now that Oracle owns<br>Sun.<br>
<br><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_file_systems">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_file_systems</a><br><br>Well, something for everyone?<br><br> -- Bob<br><br><br><br> <br></div></div>