Reiser4 about four times as fast as Windows NTFS

[Guest anon]

Though it has been a long-time coming, a new version of ReiserFS -- Reiser4 -- is scheduled to hit the open-source world in the next month or so. This new version is a complete rewrite from version 3 and brings "journaled" filesystems to another level. It is also the first salvo in an inevitable battle with Microsoft's Longhorn filesystem.

 

Performance Perks

 

Reiser4 has a performance boost two to five times that of version 3, Hans Reiser, the program's author, told NewsFactor. The "atomic" filesystem ensures data integrity -- crashes cannot corrupt file operations -- and does it without a performance hit, because a new algorithm means data does not have to be copied twice. Reiser4 uses the faster "dancing trees" algorithm instead of the balanced tree algorithm previously used, so it is more space efficient than block-alignment filesystems, Reiser said.

 

Reiser4 also can scale to a large number of CPUs, because it uses "per node" locking. "We lock nodes in the tree that we need to modify while performing a [change to a file]," Reiser said. In version 3, the entire filesystem would lock, so multiple CPUs could not modify different parts of the tree simultaneously. Reiser4 also locks the tree from bottom up rather than top down. Most databases lock as much as they possibly need to, but Reiser4 only locks what it has to, Reiser said.

 

Reiser4 also features built-in encryption and compression plug-ins. Compression and encryption occur when data is "flushed" to the disk rather than with each write, Reiser said. Therefore, a frequently used file is not continually compressed and encrypted, hogging system resources.

 

The plug-in infrastructure of ReiserFS makes the system easily customizable, Reiser said. There are already researchers working on plug-ins that will give Reiser4 "security attributes that we couldn't have imagined," Reiser said. "We hope it will lead to all kinds of innovation," he added.

 

 

Namesys puts the ReiserFS code through a "strenuous" QA process before submitting it, Reiser noted. He said he has been working on Reiser4 for three years, and the program is about a month away from release. "Once it is submitted, I expect that it will be accepted [by the Linux community]."

 

ReiserFS Does Lindows

 

Among the early adopters will be Lindows.com, which has a financial relationship with Namesys and is building Reiser4 into the next version of LindowsOS, the desktop operating system. The new version of Lindows will be out sometime in 2004. (LindowsOS currently uses version 3 of ReiserFS.) SuSE Linux and Gentoo also use ReiserFS as their default filesystem.

 

"[ReiserFS] is the default filesystem for all SuSE installs, so we dedicate significant resources to ReiserFS stability, performance and features," Joseph Eckert, spokesperson for SuSE Linux, told NewsFactor.

 

"ReiserFS performs well, is well-maintained, and the developers leverage advanced filesystem research while keeping an eye on the feature set we want," said Cheryl Schwarzman, a spokesperson for Lindows.com. Alternative Linux filesystems have had their problems, Schwarzman told NewsFactor. "The Linux port of XFS from [silicon Graphics] proved unstable two years ago. Ext3 from Red Hat, while popular, doesn't seem as robust a design."

 

Journaled filesystems like ReiserFS are very important to LindowsOS users, Schwarzman said. (A journaled filesystem maintains a log of what it is doing so that if a crash occurs, it can recreate the changes that were being made to the disk.) A nonjournaled filesystem has to be scanned in its entirety if not shut down cleanly, Schwarzman explained. As a disk gets fuller, the waiting time for the scan gets longer.

 

"Waiting 20 minutes for the system to boot when your kid trips over the power cord isn't really an option," Schwarzman said. "We need a filesystem that doesn't need a system manager and can stand the knockabout world we live in."

 

"Atomic write" is an important enhancement in Reiser4, Schwarzman said. Changes to files happen in uninterruptible chunks, ensuring data integrity, she explained. The filesystem saves space because small files are grouped together. "In earlier file systems, you had a minimum container size for a file, and if the file was smaller than that, too bad -- you still needed at least one container per item."

 

Is It Safe?

 

The security features of ReiserFS are another plus for Lindows.com. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is a sponsor of Reiser4. "The modularity of the design is key, allowing the security features to be audited methodically," Schwarzman said. Reiser4 also supports "fine granularity," which means security at the field level. Traditional Unix security is geared towards multi-user systems and protects the system from the users and the users from each other, she said. "Capabilities-based security focuses on what each computing component can do."

 

Some users question the wisdom of putting Reiser4 into the LindowsOS right away. Lindows.com argues that the gains in speed and data integrity will be very beneficial to users. "There are always problems when swapping in any new system, but the clarity and simplicity of the design should give big wins here," Schwarzman maintains. "Any remaining bugs should easier to find." Lindows.com has "thousands of insiders" giving Reiser4 a workout before the general release, she says.

 

Version 4 of ReiserFS is architected to keep data substantially more secure than v3 due to its use of atomic operations and a better designed fsck (file system check), Reiser said. "There is always a lag while one waits for code to settle into stability. Yet, the performance and other motivations for using [Reiser4] are compelling. Unfortunately, I must advise users to monitor [Reiser4] developments," he said.

 

Benchmark Questions

 

Because of its efficient data structure and its performance enhancements, many experts say ReiserFS is best used in environments that have directories full of small files, like a Web site with thousands of HTML files. According to Reiser, ReiserFS also works on directories of large files. "ReiserFS is a general-purpose filesystem. Other filesystems are unusable if you have lots of small files," he said.

 

Hans Reiser created filesystem benchmarking tests designed to be fairly representative of the file-size distribution of most users. About 80 percent of the files in the benchmark are 8K or smaller, 80 percent of the remaining files are 80K and smaller, and the remainder are 800K and smaller. "Reiser4 does quite well on all benchmarks," Reiser said. "With [Reiser4], we took five different technical gambles, and all of them worked. The result is very high performance."

 

Gunning for "Win"

 

Reiser4 will be about four times as fast as Windows' NTFS, estimates Reiser. But Microsoft has the new WinFS system coming in Longhorn. The "big feature" of WinFS is content management, says Lindows.com's Schwarzman.

 

"Traditionally, file systems just deal with files as black boxes, never really looking inside," she explained. WinFS indexes the content of files and other features. "Whether putting this functionality directly into the file system is a good idea remains to be seen," Schwarzman said.

 

Reiser has "substantial plans" for adding new kinds of semantics to ReiserFS to help it challenge Microsoft's efforts. "We're planning on competing with the Longhorn filesystem," he says.

 

The new ReiserFS will eschew the relational algebra approach and work with semistructured data. "The person entering data can employ [the] structure inherent in the data rather than forcing a structure," Reiser said, adding, "Flexibility in querying and creating data is our target. [This] will stand in contrast to Microsoft's SQL-based approach, which does not have that flexibility."

 

It is not likely that organizations will choose Linux due to its filesystem, but it is these behind-the-scenes, incremental developments that help make Linux more reliable and dependable. For systems administrators, that is music to the ears.

[Ixthusdan]

Yes, I like it. Of course, I already like reiserfs!

[Darkelve]

Yes, I like it. Of course, I already like reiserfs!

ditto!

 

B)

[linux_learner]

OT how does rieserfs4 compare to XFS?

[iphitus]

Reiser4 will be about four times as fast as Windows' NTFS, estimates Reiser. But Microsoft has the new WinFS system coming in Longhorn. The "big feature" of WinFS is content management, says Lindows.com's Schwarzman.

 

Bah!

 

 

WinFS is NOT a filesystem

 

Microsoft were *going* to make a whole new file system, WinFS. However they opted not to and WinFS is simply a friendly lookin layer above NTFS. There are no changes to the filesystem, NTFS. So the old File tree, c:\windows\............. aint goin nowhere fast - just gonna be hidden under some more MS bloat.

[DragonMage]

I am a reiserfs fan ever since mandrake starts putting it in their kernel. :)

And NTFS is a joke imo.. I still have bad fragmentation from using it. It's better than FAT32 but not by much.

[aRTee]

Seems to me that Reiser did a very good job.

 

Hmm, howabout innovation, MS?

 

In linuxland, this year is great:

NFS4,

Reiser4,

Kernel 2.6,

KDE3.2,

 

I'd say technically, this year is the year of linux (unless 2003 was) -- looking back, it will be seen as such.

 

Thanks Mr. H.Reiser!

 

Next partition that I format for linux will be reiser4 (in a bit, all set for now with my 160 and 120GB hd's).

[GodFlesh]

artree, i would add gimp 2.0 and easy graphical user swithtching to your list..

 

 

Do you think ReiserFS4 will make it in Mandrake 10.1 ?

[aRTee]

GIMP2.0 !!! OMG how could I forget!

 

Easy graphical user switching has been around for quite a bit longer, as has the true multiuser aspect that win still doesn't have (no admin rights? log off, and on with the admin account. 'su'? never heard of, is that some kind of sushi?)...

 

I think Reiser 4 will not make it to mdk10.0, probably to 10.1 in September... wishful thinking, but anyway...

[johnnyv]

Easy graphical user switching has been around for quite a bit longer, as has the true multiuser aspect that win still doesn't have (no admin rights? log off, and on with the admin account. 'su'? never heard of, is that some kind of sushi?)...

Sort of 'su' = "sushi user"