Filesystem

[userdan]

What kind of filesystem do you thing would be best for Linux servers? I hear that ext3 is the most popular, but supposedly xfs and resierfs are faster. Which one gives the greatest stability and less chance of corruption, and better chances of recovering from a hard drive crash? I'm not that familiar with Linux filesystems, I'm afraid, so I don't know which one to pick.

[iamsam]

You're missing JFS, along with a few others.

Anyway, XFS and ReiserFS are indeed faster, but at the cost of greater CPU usage. I've also read reports where XFS caused severe data loss when the system crashes. As for ReseirFS, it recovers well from crashes but that doesn't mean to say it doesn't have its faults. There are pros and cons to every filesystem, really.

Frankly, I'd stick with Ext3 for now. With a proper backup solution, a hard drive crash is easy enough to recover from. Also, using Ext3 will make it easier for you to upgrade when Ext4 gets released.

[JeremyWJ]

Originally Posted by userdan

What kind of filesystem do you thing would be best for Linux servers? I hear that ext3 is the most popular, but supposedly xfs and resierfs are faster. Which one gives the greatest stability and less chance of corruption, and better chances of recovering from a hard drive crash? I'm not that familiar with Linux filesystems, I'm afraid, so I don't know which one to pick.

I would pick ext3.

[Maggie Q.]

My vote is for ext3, it is far much better than other Linux file systems. Some of the advantages of ext3 file system are:

1.It allows in-place upgrade from ext2 file system without having to back up and restore data.

2. ext3 uses less CPU power than other file systems like XFS and ReiserFS.

3. ext3 have a wider testing base and is relatively simple, that’s why it is considered as safer than other Linux file systems.