From: Jim Graham (jim@n5ial.mythical.com)
Date: 07/10/93


From: jim@n5ial.mythical.com (Jim Graham)
Subject: Re: [C] Best Filesystem?
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1993 16:13:01 GMT

In article <C9tsqF.GGu@wetware.com> erc@wetware.com (Ed Carp) writes:
>Christopher A. Smith (smithc@lars.acc.stolaf.edu) wrote:
>
>: Which of the available filesystems -- ext, ext2, minix, xiafs -- is the
>: best choice for use with a linux system? A co-worker is installing
>: linux soon and was wondering about that. 'Twas a good question in my
>: opinion so I'm putting it forth to y'all...

I'm curious about this myself, as I will no doubt be moving from the plain
old minix filesystem I'm using now to a better one (and one that allows
filenames > 14 chars!).

>What does "best" mean? Fastest? Most efficient in terms of space used?

In my opinion, it looks something like this:

   1) MOST RELIABLE---I sometimes have problems now with the minix fs where
      files somehow end up being directories (naturally, ones without '.'
      and '..'), one particular header file (cdefs.h) in /usr/include/sys
      seems to get truncated on a fairly regular basis (I have a backup
      copy sitting there all the time), files sometimes end up being part
      of another file, too (i.e., recently /usr/bin/sed was also a part of
      /usr/bin/gcc), and so on. I'd like to be using a filesystem where
      this *NEVER* happens (except, perhaps, when the system goes down hard
      in a power failure...but that hasn't been the case here with the
      problems I've seen lately).

   2) As you say above, most efficient in terms of space used---I don't
      have much space as it is....

   3) Another one you mentioned---which is the fastest.

Later....
   --jim