filesystems (was Data Recovery: professionals familiar with ext3)

[Dave Hall]

On Wed, 2008-06-11 at 06:40 +1000, Paul Gear wrote:
> Tim Neill wrote:
> > Just in a similar vein to Erland's problem:
> > 
> > I've got reiserfs set up on my buntu box, and wanted to know what options
> > there are for rescuing deleted data.
> > The Internet recommends rebuilding the fs nodes from an emergency boot [not
> > an option]. I was wondering what else fellow ubuntu'ers had in mind?
> 
> If it's corrupt, rebuilding from an emergency boot is your _only_ option.
> 
> My next suggestion is: use ext3.  I've moved away from reiserfs and xfs
> in the last few years, even though in some cases (like deleting large
> files or traversing very large directories) they're far superior, simply
> because they're not getting as much love from kernel developers.  ext3
> is the most well-tested Linux file system, and i expect ext4 will
> continue the tradition.

There are many issues with ReiserFS, which has only been exacerbated by
the incarceration of its creator.  

XFS on the other hand is well maintained.  SGI has a team of people
working on XFS development.  The team in based in Melbourne.  

If you can't wait for the latest and greatest to make its way into an
official ubuntu release, you can grab it from
http://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/source.html  You can see the development
progress at http://oss.sgi.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/linux-2.6-xfs/

I stopped using ReiserFS for any thing where data integrity was an
issue, after once too often having to recover 100s of Gb from lost
+found, a painstakingly slow process.  XFS on the other hand is rock
solid, I have a couple of Tb sitting XFS filesystems just in my home
office alone, and many more on client production system.  I have also
seen XFS running on very very large filesystems.  It hasn't missed a
beat.

At the same time ext3 is good enough for the average home user, it is
designed to be a general purpose filesystem.  It doesn't really excel in
any one area.  I just pick the right tool for the job.

I hope this doesn't descend into a religious war on which filesystem is
superior, that wasn't the point of my post.

Cheers

Dave

Disclaimer: I am a former SGI contractor