Jump to content

Anyone using ext4 yet?


ianw1974
 Share

Recommended Posts

I've started using ext4 since I cleanly installed my system last week on Monday. So far, I've noticed that the performance is pretty damn good. I've not benchmarked to find out exactly, but my system starts from grub to login in around 15 seconds. From power button to login is around 30-35 seconds since the BIOS takes the majority of this time. Of course, it could be because of the Ubuntu boot process being optimised too in why it's starting so fast but the filesystem will also be helping too.

 

I only encountered one problem during the weekend when I went to login and it said my home directory didn't exist. Of course, the /home partition wasn't mounted. So an fsck fixed some issues with group configuration inconsistencies and another one I forget now - but my data is intact. Incidently, from what I read, ext4 has better recovery but it does seem that at present it isn't quite so stable yet because my laptop was shut down normally and safely so I have no explanation as to why it did what it did.

 

In case you're a bit wary right now, maybe stick with ext3 for the time being or whatever filesystem you use. I like flying by the seat of my pants and living dangerously (well not that dangerous since I do have a backup of my data :) ).

 

However, I'd be interested in your experiences if you've started using this filesystem. Oh, I know there is btrfs too but it's not stable yet but I hear it's damn fast also.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I used ext4 for a short time and yes, it feels a bit snappier than ext3. But like you, I had some concerns about stability. And as these are my work-systems and no "play-around-and-let-them-crash" computers, I decided to stick with ext3 for a little bit longer. I guess in 6 months or so, it will be pretty safe to migrate to ext4 as default filesystem - if the developers (mainly debian and Red Hat community afaik) continue to work as hard as they did the last months. Anyway, ext4 is a very interesting and promising filesystem imho.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

my preference is JFS, stable as a rock, fast as a cheetah! :thumbs:

 

Seriously, there is no reason to use ext3 or ext4 instead of JFS (unless you want to mount your Linux partition from Windows, then it has to be ext3).

Edited by tux99
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also gave JFS a shot roughly one year ago (when I used Arch) but I didn't experience any better or worse performance when using JFS instead of ext3. Is there a significant difference between ext3 and JFS? And are there some benchmark-tests that compare ext4 to JFS that you know of? Would be interesting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here:

 

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=arti..._ext4&num=3

 

ext4 wins in pretty much all of the tests. So I guess when it stabilises, it's a good reason to use it over the others. But again, everyone has their personal preference.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm using ext4 almost exclusively by now.

ext4 is usable only following kernel 2.6.29.X- the implementation on .28 series was very, very buggy.

No crashes, no stability problems, much snappier than ext3, and with very small files performance is maybe a tick lower than reiser 3.6, but still very good. On large, gigabyte scale files, performance is more on less on par with xfs, which used to be the fastest filesystem for mass storage.

I'm booting my ext4 partitions with "noatime,barrier=0" mount switches. This improves the speed quite a bit, and since I've not experienced any system crashes with .29 series kernels, I'm using it on all my mounted ext4 partitions.

The only regression (for dualboot desktops) is that there is no driver (read-only, or whatever) for windoze that can handle ext4- but, while welcome, this isn't that important for me.

Edited by scarecrow
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also gave JFS a shot roughly one year ago (when I used Arch) but I didn't experience any better or worse performance when using JFS instead of ext3. Is there a significant difference between ext3 and JFS? And are there some benchmark-tests that compare ext4 to JFS that you know of? Would be interesting.

 

Try using both JFS and ext3 on a several 100Gbyte or TByte filesystem, try doing a fsck after a unclean shutdown, or better a full fsck (as ext3 likes to do that ever so often), or copying thousands of small files around, or deleting multi-GByte files, then you will notice a massive difference...

 

If you just run normal desktop apps that don't access many files, you will hardly notice any practical difference between most filesystems (the differences are too small to notice).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here:

 

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=arti..._ext4&num=3

 

ext4 wins in pretty much all of the tests. So I guess when it stabilises, it's a good reason to use it over the others. But again, everyone has their personal preference.

 

Those phoronix tests are really badly chosen, they are simply not meaningful real-life situations and the test hardware they have chosen isn't exactly mainstream either (Atom netbook with a 32GB OCZ SSD is a rather expensive netbook hardware combination).

I have noticed that frequently with phoronix that they use daft benchmark tests.

 

Also type of cpu (L1/L2/L3 cache, how many cores) and type of disk devices used, can affect the relative performance of various filesystems to each other quite drastically. XFS for example needs decent power cpus, better if multicore (Core2Duo, Athlon X2), to perform well, it's more optimized for server use.

 

The type of use one makes of a filesystem is very important too, no filesystem is the fastest in all usage situations, some are better for many large files on a TB filesystem (media server), some are better with loads of small files, some are better for large concurrent read access (http server), ultimately you have to do your own benchmarks in your own situation to be able to chose the fastest filesystem for your use.

 

With regards to ext4, I haven't tested it yet myself, so can't judge it's real life speed, but I wouldn't trust a filesystem that hasn't been mature (i.e no development going on on it anymore) for at least a couple of years with no recent reports of corruption. As long as kernel developers still fiddle with the code (other than minimal changes to adapt it to general kernel changes) I wouldn't trust my data with it.

JFS has been around for many years and is absolutely stable and mature, you will not experience file system related data loss with it, EVER.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unless you use the centosplus kernel :)

 

True, but not available during installation sadly. Once the system is up and running, sure you can create the filesystem you want to use for JFS.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Try using both JFS and ext3 on a several 100Gbyte or TByte filesystem, try doing a fsck after a unclean shutdown, or better a full fsck (as ext3 likes to do that ever so often), or copying thousands of small files around, or deleting multi-GByte files, then you will notice a massive difference...
Well, I do copy hundreds of 5-12MB files (jpg and raw photos) on a regular basis - but I am copying them from the USB-Card-reader (2, 4 and 8 GB CF-Ultra III-cards) to the harddisk, not from harddisk A to harddisk B, so no wonder I do not notice massive time differences. And after all, if it takes a few seconds longer, I have more time left for drinking some coffee. B)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

JFS has been around for many years and is absolutely stable and mature, you will not experience file system related data loss with it, EVER.

 

That's a big statement to make, have you evidence to back it up that you will never ever lose your data? I don't think any filesystem can claim that.

 

I used to use reiserfs, but switched to ext3 because of it's data recovery tools being better (also because of the OS i was using didn't support anything but this). The same goes for jfs, it has better tools, at least if you compare to reiserfs. I'm not including the new reiserfs because I simply don't know if the tools are better. ext4 seems to be a jump up from ext3 and better too for data recovery. xfs doesn't like power loss very well.

 

I've not lost any data with ext3 ever (or even reiserfs for that matter before I switched). I haven't with ext4 yet either even including the problem I experienced recently. But that's not to say that I won't or ever will and won't claim that either despite me being so lucky so far. Red Hat uses ext3 because it's stable and rock-solid. I expect the same with ext4 too since it's a continuation of ext2/ext3.

 

I'm also investigating jfs a bit more, as it seems quite interesting an alternative perhaps albeit unavailable during install for Red Hat/CentOS. But, I've been using ext3 for years, so doubt I'll switch since I'm used to it, and it's stable and never given me any problems.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's a big statement to make, have you evidence to back it up that you will never ever lose your data? I don't think any filesystem can claim that.
No file system can, though it may be able to claim that you won't lose your data due to problems with the FS itself. Data corruption/loss due to hardware failure and other issues outside the control of the FS is always possible.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's a big statement to make, have you evidence to back it up that you will never ever lose your data? I don't think any filesystem can claim that.

 

Well it's hard to provide evidence that something will never happen, but if you research jfs on the net you won't find even a single case in at least the last 5 years or so (since JFS has been absolutely mature and the code hasn't changed anymore) were someone has experienced data loss because of JFS.

 

My experience confirms this too, I have used it and am still using it on multi-TByte filesystems, on machines that have experienced a few power-outages and other occasional issues (raid rebuilds etc) but the data has always stayed intact (I keep md5 checksums for a most of the static data, that's why I know for sure).

 

I used to use reiserfs, but switched to ext3 because of it's data recovery tools being better (also because of the OS i was using didn't support anything but this). The same goes for jfs, it has better tools, at least if you compare to reiserfs. I'm not including the new reiserfs because I simply don't know if the tools are better. ext4 seems to be a jump up from ext3 and better too for data recovery. xfs doesn't like power loss very well.

 

I previously used reiserfs too, but then switched to jfs as it's better suited for very large filesystems.

xfs is very good too (even faster than jfs), but it's much more resource hungry (memory and cpu load) than jfs and as you say it really doesn't like power losses, which would be a major issue for me as I cannot exclude those.

 

I've not lost any data with ext3 ever (or even reiserfs for that matter before I switched). I haven't with ext4 yet either even including the problem I experienced recently. But that's not to say that I won't or ever will and won't claim that either despite me being so lucky so far. Red Hat uses ext3 because it's stable and rock-solid. I expect the same with ext4 too since it's a continuation of ext2/ext3.

 

There is nothing wrong with ext3 with regards to stability, it's just the performance that's not as good, but it becomes only very noticeable on larger filesystems especially when they contain large files (video files, iso images etc).

Try doing a full fsck of a 1TB ext3 filesystem or deleting 100 files of 5GB each on a ext3 and you will agree with me...

These tasks are a matter of seconds on JFS.

 

 

I'm also investigating jfs a bit more, as it seems quite interesting an alternative perhaps albeit unavailable during install for Red Hat/CentOS. But, I've been using ext3 for years, so doubt I'll switch since I'm used to it, and it's stable and never given me any problems.

 

As long as you don't notice any issues with ext3, stick with it, it's rock solid and fine up to 20-50GB filesystems. But for anything larger you will notice it's slowness eventually.

I'm still using ext3 on smaller filesystems occasionally, but recently I tend to use JFS for everything apart from removable flash media (for compatibility).

 

My comparison was primarily between ext4 and jfs. Even if ext4 might beat jfs in some benchmarks, it's unproven stability (by which I mean years of absence of data corruption experiences by anyone on the net) make it unsuitable for me for storing valuable data (backups don't help when you only notice the data corruption after you have already been backing up the corrupted data and don't have older backup copies anymore...).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...