HD 1TB or greater Ubuntu 11.04 64bit

[Shentino]

At any rate I've had my experimental jollies with btrfs so far, but
for some reason it stalls under heavy loads when I try to sync stuff.

I can't really recommend it at this time.

Ext stuff seems to be smooth.

If you need something rock solid and steady, go with ext3.  It's been
around a very long while and has been getting a lot of TLC through the
years.  Chances of you hitting a bug in it are microscopic.

Ext4 has its improvements and I generally consider it safe, but it is
a bit newer.