I've understood that XFS is a great filesystem and would like to use it for our 2 file servers. As I'm new to linux administration, I was planning to purchase SUSE to have the XFS filesystem supported for these two machines. But, I really like the Centos distro and community. So, I'm wondering, how hard would it be for me to get this working and to maintain it. Is it complicated to recompile the Centos 4 kernel to enable it? And, what sort of upkeep is necessary as updates become available? I'd appreciate any general and specific information on what's involved to get XFS enabled on Centos 4.
Unless you specifically need a feature of XFS that's unavailable in EXT3, you might want to stick with the "standard" journalled file system since you are "new to linux administration." I have never played with XFS or Reiserfs so I can't comment on their merits, but I can comment that EXT3 has been bulletproof for me on many file server installs. And being a lazy creature of habit, I've not felt the need to rock the boat. 8-)
I've heard that it can take a very long time to get an EXT3 system back online after a file system crash; whereas, XFS provides rapid recovery from system crashes. Since we mirror the two file servers (each have an attachment with 2 TB of data), I'm more interested in being able to get back online quickly. Have you had any file system crashes and if so, how long did it take you to get back up?