From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Mason Subject: Re: ext2 large block size > page size Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2011 16:13:56 +0200 Message-ID: <4D95DDA4.8000304@free.fr> References: <4D91C806.10601@free.fr> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: clameter@sgi.com, hch@lst.de To: linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Return-path: In-Reply-To: <4D91C806.10601@free.fr> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-fsdevel.vger.kernel.org Hello again, Mason wrote: > As far as I can tell from a quick Google search, > there was a push in 2007 to add support for large > blocks in some file-systems, in particular ext2. > > e.g. cf. http://lwn.net/Articles/239090/ The page above describes one of the proposed patch, and the following article by Jonathan Corbet gives an overview of the issues. http://lwn.net/Articles/232757/ > Was this ever accepted into the main line? > (It seems to have lived within -mm for a while) > > A few years later, I'm trying to mount a HDD > which was ext2-formatted with 32k blocks. > > And mount is failing (with a strange "block size > too small" error message). > > I'm trying this in Fedora 14 > 2.6.35.6 kernel > 1.41.12 e2fsprogs To add insult to injury, Ext2Fsd(*) an ext2 IFS (Installable File System) for Windows, accepts large-block ext2 partitions. (*) http://www.ext2fsd.com/ > Is the support for large blocks in ext2 not compiled in > this generic kernel ? Or was the patch never accepted ? > > I'm working with a ST Microelectronics set-top box. > Here are a few performance results for a 2TB USB HDD: > block size 4k : format = 151 s / mount = 242 s > block size 8k : format = 52 s / mount = 71 s > block size 16k : format = 30 s / mount = 36 s > block size 32k : format = 18 s / mount = 19 s > > Using 4kB blocks makes mount too slow on the STB, which > is why I'd like to use larger blocks. It would be nice > if the movies recorded on the STB could also be read on > a Linux PC. Is there, perhaps, a better place to discuss this issue? -- Regards, Mason