On Dec 3, 2010, at 9:25 AM, cpolish at surewest.net wrote: > On Fri, Dec 03, 2010 at 08:31:12AM -0500, Adam Tauno Williams wrote: >> On Fri, 2010-12-03 at 14:20 +0100, Peter Kjellström wrote: >>> On Friday 03 December 2010 13:55:28 Keith Roberts wrote: >>>> There was a similar thread about which is the best FS for >>>> Centos. >>>> I'm using ext3, and wondered if XFS would be more 'data >>>> safe' than ext3. >>> 'data safe' is certainly not something easy to define. >> >> +1 >> >>> Short answer: no XFS is not better than ext3 here. >> >> +1 We'll all move to ext4 with CentOS 6. ext4 is a big improvement >> over the options available in CentOS 5 >> >>> In the end the only thing that'll keep your data safe are backups. >>>> I had a 100GiB ext3 partition, and it took up 1.75GiB for FS >>>> administration purposes. I reformatted it to XFS, and it >>>> only used 50.8MB! >>> Oversimplified: XFS sets data structures up as you go, ext3 does it from >>> start. Also, the default for ext3 is to reserve space (see the -m option). >> >> +1 >> >> Although equivalent issues can arise in XFS [vs. ext3]. >> <http://www.whitemiceconsulting.com/2010/09/xfs-inodes.html> >> >>>> I now have a fresh new drive to install my root Centos >>>> system onto, and wondered about creating the partitions >>>> as XFS? >>> ext3 is default => extremely well tested => good choice (IMHO) >> >> I'd stick with ext3 unless you have a compelling reason to use another >> FS. >> >>>> What about the XFS admin tools - do these get installed when >>>> you format a partition as XFS from anaconda, or are they a >>>> seperate rpm package, installed later? >>> They are in a separate rpm (xfsprogs, repository: extras). > > Has anyone an update or status for issues raised in > http://lwn.net/Articles/322823/ > or T'so's response to the issue > https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/317781/comments/45 > have all the apps been adjusted, or is ext4 still more vulnerable > to data loss than ext3? Could link to a reference? Both ext4 and xfs are susceptible to this type of data loss. These file systems excel in handling very large volumes of data, TBs, especially in the time to fsck and handling of very large files because of that they tend to be on server class hardware with UPS power protection, or on video recorders where a little data loss isn't the end of the world. If you are talking GBs of data, stick with ext3. -Ross