(A MUST READ!!!!!) The Ultimately Fastest Ubuntu Desktop/Server You Can Have!

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Originally Posted by ss0007

so , how do i convert my existing ext3 to XFS ?

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You could try this:
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Convert_Filesystems

Although I've never tried it so can't guarantee it won't screw your FS

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Originally Posted by Paulo Wageck

i have been using reiserfs.... very stable and nice..
try it out.

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Do you notice a big speed difference compared to ext3?

I used to use reiserfs on Breezy. However, Breezy itself was slower than Dapper so it's different to say if the file system was faster or not. I had reiserfs on SuSE some time ago (I guess it's default there, though I may be wrong) and had some unpleasant experience when though i have not lost my data but had to reinstall the system as the file system became corrupt after some crash and did not want to cure :)

Thanks for your input foxy123. From what you are saying perhaps it's best to do this:

/ reiserFS or XFS
/home ext3
/swap reiserFS or XFS

Does anyone know the differnces between reiserFS and XFS, as in speed, reliability?

Here are some famous benchmarks between filesystems.

ReiserFS is usually faster then ext3, specially for small files, but have a know problem of quickly (and badly) fragments, degradating performance very fast.

Another problem (small one) in XFS is more cpu consumer then ext3.

JFS is usually not much used or referred since most people find it, in opposition to ext3, to much new and very little experimented (and reiser4 too in fact).

While I am aware of the performance boost from using XFS (I use it myself), I can't help feeling that some of your claims are... exaggerated.

"1. Formatting 500GB in ext3 takes around 10-15 mins. Formatting the same drive in XFS takes (no kidding) 7 seconds (if you don't believe me try it)."

This is because there is more than one way to format any file system - there's a quick format that just wipes the index so that all space is treated as free space, and then there's a thorough one that actually gos through and zeroes each bit on the disk.

"2. Network traffic was slow. My network is setup perfect (as it is what I do for a living) and I could not achieve any greater than 5Mb/s no matter what I did in ext3, and it would eventually simmer down to around 2-3 after around 1 hour of transfer. XFS....no less than 11.1Mb/s at all times, no matter what I am doing, and no degregation of signal at all. (10/100 switch)."

11.1Mb is about 1.2 megabytes per second, and to be frank any file system can handle that easily, unless you have a drive spinning at 1000 RPM. On pretty much any network file transfer, the network connection is the bottle neck (the exception being the 1Gb/s connections that are still rarely supported).

3". Packet loss. After monitoring 20 250GB transfers from one machine to the next, I achieved a 13-15% rate of packet loss using ext3. Absolutely none with XFS and the tranfer took 1/8 of the time (no kidding)."

Again, this sounds very like a network issue. Unless the ext3 file system is very corrupted (which is possible), then packet loss will be through the network connection. An eight times file transfer increase is simply not possible through just changing file systems. Period.

"4. Using vmware-server like I do everyday for everything, including real world projects/servers, I wondered why it was so slow. The problem...ext3. I installed vmware-server on XFS and the machines are at least, and I mean at the very least, twice as fast for boot and operations."

This is certainly possible on a machine with little RAM, but the actual raw processing/graphical speed would obviously be uneffected. Twice as fast to boot sounds surprising, but is possible on low ram/slow hard disk computers.

"5. I was wondering why no matter how I niced my transfer process I could gain no more speed than if the transfer (ftp, ssh, smb, etc) would not go any faster or use anymore cpu. The answer. XFS. It took full advantage of the multithreading capability of my cpu (as it uses raw i/o access) and my cpu (amd 32bit/64) is now being used correctly, whether for transfer or normal i/o operations (copy, create, delete, etc.)"

"Again, unless this is very high bandwidth network connection, the file system is not the bottle neck and is not responsible for the speed increase. I/O operations on a local machine WILL be faster, but you'll only notice if you're doing it with either very many or very large files."

"6. Multitasking. I can honestly say, I am on a complete different level with XFS. It will make use of your processor and filesystem like you never thought possible. Nothing seems to slow down no my Seagate 7200 rpm 250Gb sata (8mb cache). It is like new I tell you."

This depends on your configuration - if you have a slow CPU and fast hard drive, you won't want the processor being used for file operations. This is a farely vague point, so I'll leave it at that.

"7. Gaming. Again, not even close with ext3. XFS makes doom3 and anything else run at least 75-100% better"

This point is simploy not possible. Although levels may load quicker, Doom 3 doesn't access the hard disk at all during normal game play. Unless you have very little RAM and it's improving swapping speed (and still, not by 100%), file system will not effect the actual FPS in game.

"8. XFS gave me 6 gig back on my harddrive (98.02% usage)."

Sounds extreme, but if you have millions of smallish files on a large hard drive, I suppose it's possible.

"9. Stability. Well, I hate to say it, but XFS is more stable than ext3. I did approximately 15 cold shutdowns while in the middle of processing for both filesystems. Had to do 3 checks with ext3. Zero with XFS."

This is because ext3 is very conservitive when it comes to checking (it will check often when there isn't any corruption), and XFS often doesn't check even when the file system is corrupted. Also, the most recent data will not be present after a reboot due to caching and many files that were in use may be zeroed or extremely corrupted. File system checks/crash is not a measure of file system stability.

"10. Swap. Let's just say now, with XFS it actually does feel like I have 4 GB of RAM. Swap slowdown, seems to have dissapeared."

Depending on your amount of RAM, you may see a significant increase. With 1.5-2 GB I can think of few instances where you'll be swapping intensively. Also, the actual bandwidth of the IDE/SATA connection is about 1/100th of that of actual RAM, so this is exaggerated at the very least. Swap is no substitute for RAM, no matter what the FS.

"11. Multimedia editing (something I do everyday with video and audio). Simply put, if you do either, make the switch to XFS. It's a totally different experience."

There would certainly be an increase in video editing, but in audio editing the files are not large enough to see the hard disk slowing it down much. On any file system, a 50GB wav takes a few seconds to read. This may be down to swap I suppose, but again this sounds exaggerated.

Pre-loading could well see a performance boost since it involves reading large aomounts of data from the disk as quickly as possible.

I'm happy you've found a file system that works for you, but don't try to get others to switch based on false or exaggerated information. It sounds like you atleast used a different network connection with each file system, and many of your other claims seem exaggerated and are without benchmarks.

Noted reply......

I don't think I said you "have to switch" Noone in the forums says you have to do anything. Since every system is different, what I listed was straight from experience. On my system, it seems like a G*d send. So before you tell me what not to do...check yourself buddy. Noone is telling anyone else to do anything. If you don't like it, don't read it, but don't discourage others from trying. What it did for me, was in a word, much needed. Even thought it might be because I deal with 10 GB video files everyday from my file server. Either way it worked. If everyone kept there mouth shut and only spoke if they had concrete graphical/statistical data to support everything said here in the forums, it would be a lot smaller and a lot less exciting. Again, check yourself bro, and do whatever you want. Noone is pulling your leg. To others, I say, give it a whirl, you might find what I found. By the way, I have had no data loss after over 20 forced power downs. Maybe just luck, but we'll see!:D

Axely

i use jfs it's just as fast as xfs with most day to day tasks, and is more reliable than xfs or reiserfs, it seems to handle hard reboots and power outages with no damage to the filesystem like you get sometimes with reiser and xfs for me it just works. as for ext3 it can be slow and it seems like the longer you use the system the slower it gets, but you can speed it up a great deal by adding the elevator=cfq option to the kernel.

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Originally Posted by axely

Noted reply......

I don't think I said you "have to switch" Noone in the forums says you have to do anything. Since every system is different, what I listed was straight from experience. On my system, it seems like a G*d send. So before you tell me what not to do...check yourself buddy. Noone is telling anyone else to do anything. If you don't like it, don't read it, but don't discourage others from trying. What it did for me, was in a word, much needed. Even thought it might be because I deal with 10 GB video files everyday from my file server. Either way it worked. If everyone kept there mouth shut and only spoke if they had concrete graphical/statistical data to support everything said here in the forums, it would be a lot smaller and a lot less exciting. Again, check yourself bro, and do whatever you want. Noone is pulling your leg. To others, I say, give it a whirl, you might find what I found. By the way, I have had no data loss after over 20 forced power downs. Maybe just luck, but we'll see!:D

Axely

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I dont feel that mejy's words were any more discouraging then your post was encouraging. It was simply a different opinion.

Also if you title is a recommendation to use this FS on a server I would ask you this; Do you have a server? I honestly wouldnt want to risk my almost 2TB worth of data on mine to a FS thats not solid.

On that note....agreed. So now that I've calmed the he** down from your first post, let me say..

Yes I do have a server...4 to be exact (only 2 over 500GB though)

I'm only using it because I can't get it to crash like people say, even after 15 (now 23) power downs forced on it. Anyway, I would like to know what you think of JFS vs. XFS, or something, instead of just telling me it sucks/telling me what not to do. If you can offer something of that nature, then cool...if not, I'd end the reply about here with me. Just saying something is bad, without any support whatsoever is what is really misleading. Moreso than my original post. Dig up some data...or....well I'll finish that later depending on your reply, if you give one.

Lates......