Difference between ext 3 and ext 4?

[Eagles18]

I know there are differences between them,but what are they?

[RiceMonster]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext4

[SunnyRabbiera]

Here are wikipedia articles on the matter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext4

What you use in the end is up to you, there is no real advantage to "upgrade" from ext3 to 4 other then speed and power, but EXT3 is the more stable right now in my opinion.

[Eagles18]

Thanks guys, I thought I was missing out on something by staying with ext 3.

[SunnyRabbiera]

Thanks guys, I thought I was missing out on something by staying with ext 3.

Nah you are not missing out on much by using EXT3, like I said speed is a big advantage of EXT4.
Its not a security update and nor will EXT3 go out of style anytime soon.
Heck EXT2 is still around, and one can use it without issue...
But it does suffer when power outages happen.

[BuffaloX]

I'm a bit confused.
The Wiki page for Ext4 states that it exceeds ext3 64 bit address limit.

2^64 = 18, 446, 744, 073, 709, 551, 616
______Exa,Peta,Tera,Giga,Mega,Kilo,Byte


That is 18 Exabyte! That's more than 18 million Terabyte!
Who need more than that?

But then they continue to say Ext 4 can "only" handle 1 Exabyte?

None the less, I'm VERY pleased with Ext4, it's fast, and when disk checks run, they take only about 1/10 th. the time they did on ext3.
I didn't time it, but that's about how it feels to me.

Edit:
Saw Ext 3 actually is maxed at 16 Terabyte disks, which is far from 64 bit!

[Zoot7]

The main difference i've noticed is that fsck completes a LOT faster than ext3.
I've also noticed it's substantially more snappy when copying large amounts of small files.