Re: How do I pick the best fs?

[Andreas Happe <andreashappe@gmx.net>]

In article <1048160854.23760.21.camel@Zebra.vil.ite.mee.com>, Paul Furness wrote:
> Hmm, I can see I've opened a sacred cow... ;)

fs? vi/emacs? monolithic/microkernel? ;) it's all the same
 
> XFS is very much an unknown to me, and I'm not sure if I can use it
> fully anyway: I'm slightly constrained because I need to use Samba to
> share the file systems as well as NFS.

there were a couple of problems using reiserfs with nfs, but I think
they should be gone by now.

the "typical" filesystem which was in use with samba/acl is/was xfs
(because of its acl features and speed compared to ext3/reiserfs). I
dunno how this has changed since the acl bits have moved into a higher
level (at least in 2.5 if I remember it correctly).

>I'm not yet clear on whether the
> acl feature of XFS will work with samba;

as that was one of the main reasons why early linux based nas solutions
used xfs there should be no problems.

> In that case, reiserfs probably has a slight edge[...]

remember checking for reiserfs/nfs problems. The reiserfs semantics of
some file operations are slightly different than other fs (that was the
problem, that my Maildir was rather sluggish with reiserfs compared to
other fs.) but that has been known for long and should be changed by now
(just remember to use an up-to-date kernel)

> actually used it in anger (on my workstation) for a good couple of
> months and it certainly seems quicker than Ext3.

the best thing would be a benchmark dependend on your needs. Please post
your results (if you're willing to do such a benchmark) to this group
and the corresponding filesystem groups/lkml.

Andreas
-- 
26. No matter how attractive certain members of the rebellion are, there is 
    probably someone just as attractive who is not desperate to kill me. 
    Therefore, I will think twice before ordering a prisoner sent to my 
    bedchamber. --Peter Anspach's list of things to do as an Evil Overlord