Well if ext3 is so good why don't Windows use it [Archive]

samjh

June 3rd, 2007, 08:14 PM

I have been wondering if the ext3 filesystem is so good, not saying it is not why does'nt Win use it so they could brag to that there os does not need defragmenting.

All file systems will fragment, ext3 is no exception.

Ext3 doesn't have any definitive advantages over the proprietary NTFS. It's a good file system, but what does ext3 have to offer that NTFS needs? Nothing really. NTFS is good file system with a long history, and continues to evolve. It makes no sense for Microsoft to throw it away.

NTFS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS

ext3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext3

zorkerz

June 3rd, 2007, 08:17 PM

well it has permissions ntfs does not have that. I feel ntfs is pretty basic without much of the features in ext3

samjh

June 3rd, 2007, 08:20 PM

Permissions? Do you mean ACLs? NTFS has ACLs.

Sorry in advance, if I misunderstood.

kevinlyfellow

June 3rd, 2007, 08:28 PM

All file systems will fragment, ext3 is no exception.

Ext3 doesn't have any definitive advantages over the proprietary NTFS. It's a good file system, but what does ext3 have to offer that NTFS needs? Nothing really. NTFS is good file system with a long history, and continues to evolve. It makes no sense for Microsoft to throw it away.

NTFS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS

ext3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext3

I'm not an expert on filesystems... is it the os that determines the amount of fragmentation that goes on in the filesystem then? Is the windows kernel to blame then?

Update: It seems like its filesystem from this website. Its a great read, and dispels some fragmentation myths http://dataexpedition.com/~sbnoble/Tips/filesystems.html#Optimization

samjh

June 3rd, 2007, 09:01 PM

I'm not an expert on filesystems... is it the os that determines the amount of fragmentation that goes on in the filesystem then? Is the windows kernel to blame then?

It's a combination of the operating system and the file system. Most of the bad talk about Windows file system fragmentation dates back to the days of FAT16 and FAT32 file systems, which were truly crap.

Fragmentation is caused of gaps in a file written to disk that should be contiguous, but are not. Basically, an OS needs to make sure it allocates enough contiguous space on the disk so that the file can written in one big block, instead of having parts of it scattered at random locations, or having to fit pieces of data in gaps between other files. So yes, operating systems are a factor.

The other factor is the file system. FAT16 and FAT32 were crap. No arguments there. NTFS is a much more capable and evolved system. Aside from its other features, it supports extents, which pre-allocates contiguous empty space before writing data (this will be supported by the next version of ext: ext4). Allocate-on-flush is another technique (this one allocates space in sync with other allocation demands) that will be implemented in ext4.

I think at the moment, NTFS and ext3 are standing on similar ground in terms of fragmentation performance. Ext4 will be better when it's released, but NTFS is always being improved, so Microsoft might spring a few more features for it. Windows Vista, for example, does background defrags that are transparent to the user.

jiminycricket

June 3rd, 2007, 09:35 PM

That's because Microsoft didn't make it and can't charge for it. :D That and they would never agree to the GPL's license requirements.

Exactly. Microsoft is against interoperability. They are all about maintaining and increasing barriers of entry.

NTFS = HPFS embraced and extended

NTFS was a trade secret and a big barrier until ntfs-3g was created. In the past, there was a lot of pain in writing to NTFS in 2000, when Microsoft published a patch that caused NTFS on Linux to destroy ntfs partitions.

godd4242

June 3rd, 2007, 09:37 PM

Well the why don't MS just make there own more efective filesystem that they have.

NTS allows higher backwards compatibility standards.

init1

June 3rd, 2007, 09:42 PM

I have been wondering if the ext3 filesystem is so good, not saying it is not why does'nt Win use it so they could brag to that there os does not need defragmenting.
Because microsoft does not want to admit that their filesystem is not as good as some of the free filesystems.

hanzomon4

June 3rd, 2007, 10:51 PM

My ntfs would get very fragmented, so does my brothers. It could be because we do audio work but in my end user experience it wasn't too hot. However I have no way of knowing if my linux(ext3, jfs, xfs) file systems are fragmented. I don't believe that everything MS is bad, xp served me well, but the OSS world has given me many great options. That by itself is an advantage against ntfs. With ext4 coming out and the amazing(but mysterious to me) sun zfs I see MS getting further behind in the File System race.

Is the Winfs ever going to see the light of day? And what advantages did it have over ntfs, I'm technologically ignorant.

EDIT: I see Winfs is not an ntfs replacement, more like a service or enhancement

stmiller

June 3rd, 2007, 11:15 PM

Well if ext3 is so good why don't Windows use it

Good question. I think, however, the chances of Windows adopting ext3 for their native FS is about the same chances of them using the Linux kernel as the kernel of their next OS, unfortunately.

Rocket2DMn

June 3rd, 2007, 11:21 PM

MS is stuck in their ways. For now, their stuff works for them. In the end, so long as we can read it and write to it with ntfs-3g, who really cares what they do?

LightB

June 4th, 2007, 12:02 AM

Microsoft won't (Yet) admit that NTFS is an inferior filesystem, just like Apple wouldn't admit that PowerPC processors are inferior to Intel. It's just what businesses do, they give hype to even the most ridiculous, incorrect things.

hah, yes, and it will be a cold day in hades before they admit that DirectX10 is actually mostly hype once it actually comes around.

wolfen69

June 4th, 2007, 12:59 AM

WOW, the sparks are flyin! i love it.

afljafa

June 4th, 2007, 03:10 AM

well it has permissions ntfs does not have that. I feel ntfs is pretty basic without much of the features in ext3

Sigh - why do people continue to post uninformed rubbish such as this.

Quillz

June 4th, 2007, 03:34 AM

ext3 was never touted as the "best file system," to my knowledge. And, as others have said, it's open source, something that Microsoft likely wouldn't want to adapt. Besides, you do know that NTFS is a journaled file system just like ext3, right? It rarely needs defragging, despite what you may have thought to the contrary. It's only the FAT file system that needs defragging, which XP uses by default.

laxmanb

June 4th, 2007, 03:47 AM

NTFS is quite good actually... and the only open source Filesystem with a lot of buzz around it is ZFS...

guitarmaniac

June 4th, 2007, 04:48 AM

I've always wondered why there wasnt a defrag program fro ext3.
I mean, sure it is journalised, but my hard drive is probably doing twice the work.
I'm no expert on the subject, but it just seems logical to try to keep files in order on the disc where possible.

jiminycricket

June 4th, 2007, 04:55 AM

There is one called pyfragtools.

Or you can move all data off the ext3 partition, then back onto it.

mips

June 4th, 2007, 05:41 AM

Well the why don't MS just make there own more efective filesystem that they have.

Well they are & it is called WinFS. It was hyped as one of the features of Longhorn (which is now Vista) but it never made it inot Vista.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinFS
.

runningwithscissors

June 4th, 2007, 05:44 AM

Who the heck even "defrags" their partitions on Windows either. I've never known anybody who did that. And no, NTFS does not slow up if you don't defrag.

jiminycricket

June 4th, 2007, 06:09 AM

Mine does, frequently (on both hard drives). Same on my laptop.

hanzomon4

June 4th, 2007, 07:03 AM

Yep, same here

STREETURCHINE

June 4th, 2007, 07:41 AM

yep have to defrag windows xp frequently and that uses ntfs,if i dont it slows right down:p

runningwithscissors

June 4th, 2007, 07:51 AM

Strange. Last I used it, NTFS seemed to blaze along perfectly well even after months without defragging.

D!mon

June 4th, 2007, 08:03 AM

so is it actually a disadvantage of ext3 that it doesn't have defragmentation program?

afljafa

June 4th, 2007, 08:07 AM

Strange. Last I used it, NTFS seemed to blaze along perfectly well even after months without defragging.

Same. Can`t say i`ve suffered any performance hits and I never defrag.

Morpsemia

June 4th, 2007, 08:19 AM

It's a little more complicated than that.
Fragmented systems occur because there is a lot of disk activity, particularly creating and deleting lots of files. Just to be clear, a fragmented file is one that is not continuous on the disk, meaning it's scattered all over the hard drive. Think of a file as a few sheets of paper, if they are all next to each other in a nice file cabinet, they are easy to find quickly. If they are all over the place it can take forever to find all of it. If your not digging around through the disk much, then your not going to get a lot of fragmentation. This is where the design of the OS comes in to play. Windows, on it's own, it moving files around all the time, probably the best example is swap space. Windows uses a large swap file, verses Linux's swap partition. Because, by default, windows is usually going nuts resizing the swap file and moving it around, it can fragment a disk very quickly. Windows can be tweaked to run much better, setting the swap file to a static size in this example, and compared to a system that run Linux and is used in a similar manner will do about the same on disk fragmentation. Part of the problem is that it can be a major pain in the butt to properly tweak out windows so it runs well (Don't know about Vista, haven't played with it). Linux seems to do much better on this front out of the box.

That said, MS Won't adopt a new file system until they feel it will be profitable to do so. Can't really fault them for that, they are a business after all. They made the jump to NTFS to support larger hard drives and new features, just like the jump from FAT16 to FAT32 before that.

Now, what I'm interested in is the choice of file systems on thumb and pen drives. They are started to approach the limits of the old FAT systems they currently use for compatibility.

zorkerz

June 4th, 2007, 12:25 PM

Sigh - why do people continue to post uninformed rubbish such as this.
My apologies afljafa. This was my understanding that you could give permissions to files in ext and not ntfs. I obviously have little idea what i am talking about. So please at least enlighten me after knocking me down instead of leaving me in the mud confused. I guess im a little harsh but could someone please explain.
cheers

aysiu

June 4th, 2007, 12:31 PM

The assumption in the question is flawed.

The question assumes that if anything is good it will be used by Windows. This is not the case.

stmiller

June 4th, 2007, 12:40 PM

Windows vomits bits and pieces of files all over the hard drive. Constantly. Linux does not, OS X does not. That's why you must defrag with Windows, otherwise your hard drive is racing all over the disc to read your data.

http://www.redhat.com/support/wpapers/redhat/ext3/

stimpack

June 4th, 2007, 12:49 PM

The continued use of ext3 is disapointing, there are numerous other linux filesystems that are better, each in different ways.

WinFS held promise, I was very interested in this and kind of disapointed it was a MS thing, really funny when they dropped it, for a second there it looked like Windows would have innovated somthing.

shijirou

June 4th, 2007, 12:50 PM

. It's only the FAT file system that needs defragging, which XP uses by default.

I beg to differ, most new PCs that used to be bundled with Windows XP whether it be home or professional came with NTFS partitions.

kevinlyfellow

June 4th, 2007, 03:05 PM

The continued use of ext3 is disapointing, there are numerous other linux filesystems that are better, each in different ways.

Ext3 is used because it is stable, and that is why most people choose ext3. But can you explain why it's disappointing instead of just saying that others are better? Can you clue us in as to which ones are better?

juxtaposed

June 4th, 2007, 03:52 PM

Who the heck even "defrags" their partitions on Windows either. I've never known anybody who did that. And no, NTFS does not slow up if you don't defrag.

It's one of those generic things companies of any kind that do anything with computers (ISPs, etc) always say whenever something goes wrong.

"Somethings wrong"
"Defrag, scan for viruses, restart, etc"

jgrabham

June 4th, 2007, 03:58 PM

Who the heck even "defrags" their partitions on Windows either. I've never known anybody who did that. And no, NTFS does not slow up if you don't defrag.

me :]

Its great so that people can ring up tech support- "My computers going slowly"

"go start>programmes>accesories>system tools >disk defragmenter"

Hang up

jgrabham

June 4th, 2007, 03:59 PM

It's one of those generic things companies of any kind that do anything with computers (ISPs, etc) always say whenever something goes wrong.

"Somethings wrong"
"Defrag, scan for viruses, restart, etc"

In the words of the guy on the IT crowd

"have you tried switching it off and on again"

mech7

June 4th, 2007, 04:00 PM

I thought that WinFS is comming with Vista SP1 not sure though..

Mazza558

June 4th, 2007, 04:46 PM

I have all my windows programs that are not required for the OS to function on an Ext3 Partition, shared with Ubuntu. Install the windows Ext3 drivers and you're good to go, as well as it being much faster.

hanzomon4

June 4th, 2007, 04:54 PM

I believe that WinFS is not a replacement for ntfs, rather an enhancement that would allow new features. What features? I'm not sure I think it has something to do with meta-data. The trackerfs is supposed to be able to do something similar in linux, trackerfs being related to tracker or meta-tracker.

EDIT:What is this? beaglefs?

stimpack

June 4th, 2007, 05:38 PM

Ext3 is used because it is stable, and that is why most people choose ext3. But can you explain why it's disappointing instead of just saying that others are better? Can you clue us in as to which ones are better?

I mean because it seems to require a ridiculous amount of time for people to accept things are stable, even ext3 does not have this time, but people count the ext2 base as well.

There was a brilliant article comparing the filesystems, everything from speeds on various operations to reliability. It was amazingly complex and there is no way I can state which is best without being a fool, but ext3 consistently neared the bottom on most graphs. If someone can link this article I'd be grateful.

ticopelp

June 4th, 2007, 05:55 PM

if you built something half assed and millions paid for it and diddnt complain, would YOU build something more effective?

My favorite answer in this thread.

the_darkside_986

June 5th, 2007, 02:33 AM

In my experience, NTFS does get a bit fragmented when you fill it up. When I had a 40 GB NTFS partition, I installed a few games and each one was very huge so I was left with about a couple of GB. When I ran defrag it showed how seriously fragmented everything was and how much it fixed things (unless the colors are just random to mislead the user). I'm sure this is not a big issue when you don't have a lot of files.

Quillz

June 5th, 2007, 02:56 AM

I thought that WinFS is comming with Vista SP1 not sure though..
It's already here. WinFS is not a new file system at all, it's just a new way for NTFS to index files. Much of the tech has been built into Vista's Instant Search.

runningwithscissors

June 5th, 2007, 03:52 AM

I mean because it seems to require a ridiculous amount of time for people to accept things are stable, even ext3 does not have this time, but people count the ext2 base as well.

There was a brilliant article comparing the filesystems, everything from speeds on various operations to reliability. It was amazingly complex and there is no way I can state which is best without being a fool, but ext3 consistently neared the bottom on most graphs. If someone can link this article I'd be grateful.
As far as desktop use goes, ext3 is your best bet right now. JFS and XFS are quite nice and fast but meant to be used on machines with assured power supply, and ReiserFS is unmaintained.

Erunno

June 7th, 2007, 01:19 PM

Sorry for digging up this thread but I'm curious if someone knows the answer to my question:

I've been wondering if data is flushed to disk when hibernating (suspend to disk). I'm thinking about giving XFS a try on my laptop which has an assured power supply by design but I'm wondering if data will be corrupted if waking up from hibernate fails on an XFS partition.

baracuda68

June 10th, 2007, 12:42 PM

ok...
here's my take on it...
I am a Linux/Ubuntu noob.
I selected to use ReiserFS when installing kubuntu, because of performance gains hinted on these forums.
I came over to Ubuntu to get away from the " evil MS empire" when Vista came out.
For the longest time I knew that Windows was directed towards noobs.
Noobie don't really care about the file system, or dont understand about filesystems. (I still don't, but I do much more, after many years of Windows and reading on the net)
So there is no real reason for MS to make big leaps with a new filesystem, as long as NTFS is working ok.

NOW. Is there a REAL noticeable performance/security difference be between ALL filesystems?
Is it really worth the trouble to decide in depth?

jgrabham

June 10th, 2007, 12:44 PM

You don't have to defrag ext3!

regbsn

March 2nd, 2008, 10:14 PM

Why do you not have to defrag ext3? Did I just miss it earlier in this post. I only ask because I plan to Dual boot XP and Ubuntu, out of necessity, so I am trying to decide on what format my Data partition should be.

RyuenjinZero

March 2nd, 2008, 11:01 PM

smartboyathome

March 3rd, 2008, 01:39 AM

As long as you have the ext3 drivers installed, you can do it like any other drive, though I would think of it as a security risk since a virus can destroy your files. Also, it doesn't need defragmentation (from what I understand) is because it uses a journal which lessens fragmentation, and it defrags itself every 30 mounts by default in Ubuntu.

regbsn

March 3rd, 2008, 03:14 AM

I thought that ext3 couldn't be defraged...or is it that there just isn't any programs out to defrag it?

regbsn

March 3rd, 2008, 12:25 PM

Bump for statement about ext3 auto defraging evers 30 mounts.

aysiu

March 3rd, 2008, 12:28 PM

The 30 boots thing is a disk check, not defragmentation.

forrestcupp

March 3rd, 2008, 01:36 PM

I'm an Ubuntu noob but I think it has something to do with the way data is allocated to where fragmentation is minimized, I have my shared partition as ext3 myself. Though I'm curious about what if data is stored on ext3 by using WinXP?

It's a pain in the butt to get Windows to recognize an ext3 partition functionally. There is no support for it, so you have to use 3rd party apps to read the partition, and it doesn't integrate perfectly. I'd go with NTFS for a shared partition.

A simple explanation from my limited understanding for why ext3 doesn't need defragged is because the files aren't placed on it in the same way. On Windows partitions, they try to place files close together toward the beginning of the hard drive. So when a file is deleted and a new one is put on, they try to use the space and files become fragmented. Also there can be problems when file size changes. That is a good way of doing things when there is minimal fragmentation because it takes less time to move the head around. But after a while, the files get fragmented and it slows things down.

In ext3 file systems, they spread the files out so there is a way less chance of files becoming fragmented.

articpenguin

March 3rd, 2008, 03:36 PM

ext4 will have a defragger. It still wont be needed as ext4 will have extents and delayed allocation both which reduce fragmentation.

oomingmak

March 3rd, 2008, 04:37 PM

well it has permissions, ntfs does not have that. I feel ntfs is pretty basic without much of the features in ext3
Sigh - why do people continue to post uninformed rubbish such as this.

I know (especially when permissions are one of the lamest aspects of Ext3). It's astounding the level of denial and self delusion that some people will engage in. http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc48/0omingmak/NTFSFolderPermissions.png

Next they'll be saying that Ext3 is superior to NTFS because Ext3 keeps having to do FSCKs while NTFS never has to.

:roll:

gsmanners

March 3rd, 2008, 11:08 PM

NTFS never has to use fsck because it will destroy your hard drive long before scandisk is hard coded to kick in.

Tatty

March 4th, 2008, 12:13 AM

I'm an Ubuntu noob but I think it has something to do with the way data is allocated to where fragmentation is minimized, I have my shared partition as ext3 myself. Though I'm curious about what if data is stored on ext3 by using WinXP?

http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/index.php/2006/08/17/why_doesn_t_linux_need_defragmenting

The classic "Why doesn't Linux need defragmenting?" link.

oomingmak

March 4th, 2008, 01:11 AM

NTFS never has to use fsck because it will destroy your hard drive long before scandisk is hard coded to kick in.
There is no such thing as "scandisk" in NTFS (and certainly nothing "hard-coded").

Scandisk is the name of an old DOS utility used for FAT partitions. It has never been used on NTFS.

jrusso2

March 4th, 2008, 01:16 AM

There is no such thing as "scandisk" in NTFS (and certainly nothing "hard-coded").

Scandisk is the name of an old DOS utility used for FAT partitions. It has never been used on NTFS.

NTFS does use chkdisk which is similar in function to scandisk

oomingmak

March 4th, 2008, 01:22 AM

NTFS does use chkdisk
Yes, indeed it does (and anyone who was even vaguely familiar with NTFS would have known that).

Chkdsk is still not hard-coded to run though. It may be similar in function to Scandisk, but does not run in the same way as scandisk (i.e. full drive scan whenever there's an unclean shutdown). It also does not run after elapsed time or number of mounts. Journalling tends to take care ensuring resumable disk state. I have never seen chkdsk run in over 7 years of using NTFS.

K.Mandla

March 4th, 2008, 03:27 AM

Moved to Windows Discussions.

M_the_C

March 4th, 2008, 06:47 AM

There was a brilliant article comparing the filesystems, everything from speeds on various operations to reliability. It was amazingly complex and there is no way I can state which is best without being a fool, but ext3 consistently neared the bottom on most graphs. If someone can link this article I'd be grateful.Do you mean this one? (http://linuxgazette.net/102/piszcz.html) I found this article through these forums, it is great.

For those who don't want to read it all, the basic conclusion was that it depends on what you use it for. XFS is best for handling large files (hence why it's recommended for mythtv, for your storage paritions) and ReiserFS for small files. After re-reading the conclusion i found it also recommends JFS, but I can't remember the reason for that one.