ReiserFS

I'm very happy to see that the ReiserFS development team is making data integrity (not just metadata integrity) such a high priority.

There seem to be at least two unofficial versions of the installation system for i386 supporting ReiserFS.

In contrast, ReiserFS' fsck is in its infancy, and fixing flaky metadata when it does show up can be a difficult and dangerous process.

Recently, I performed a series of tests in an attempt to figure out how XFS, ReiserFS, and ext3 compare in terms of raw performance.

For smaller files, ReiserFS tends to be much faster than ext3fs (when tail packing is enabled).

If you want to user ReiserFS and happen to be a "dump" fan, you'll have to find some alternate way of backing data.

In the second half of this article, we're going to take a look at the design vision behind ReiserFS.

After all that work, our new ReiserFS filesystem is ready for mounting.

But first, if you're creating an XFS filesystem on top of what was previously a ReiserFS filesystem, you'll need to perform a small trick.

Since its introduction, ReiserFS has had an unusually high number of stability and corruption problems.

Thus, in the event of a lockup, you will generally lose fewer of your recent metadata modifications than you would with ReiserFS.

In fact, due to a lack of incoming bug reports, Namesys has reassigned the Release Manager to a new job of improving ReiserFS performance.

One of the unique advantages of ReiserFS is support for small files -- lots and lots of small files.

Now, we come to ReiserFS, the first of several journalling filesystems we're going to be investigating.

So, what can we expect to see from ReiserFS in the near future?

OK, we're going to cover three possible options for getting a production-ready ReiserFS system up and running.

The ReiserFS mailing list is an excellent source for current, more in-depth ReiserFS information.

With ReiserFS, an unexpected reboot can result in recently modified files containing portions of previously deleted files.

There are two good reasons to be careful about kernel stability issues in general and ReiserFS stability in particular.

One the logical volume has been expanded, you can then expand your ext2 or ReiserFS filesystem to take advantage of this new space.

If you're using qmail with ReiserFS, there are a few important resources that you should know about.

With ReiserFS, XFS, and JFS, the filesystem driver journals metadata, but makes no provisions for journaling data.

Then, head over to the "File systems" section, and enable "ReiserFS support" .

XFS performed these tasks quite well, although initially, XFS performance was slightly worse than that of ReiserFS.

However, tail packing does cause a slight performance hit since it forces ReiserFS to repack data as files are modified.

ReiserFS uses a specially optimized b* balanced tree (one per filesystem) to organize all filesystem data.

During this time, lots of Gentoo Linux users have used various combinations of XFS, ext3, and ReiserFS filesystems with varying results.

Consider just our options for a journaling filesystem: ReiserFS, ext3, XFS, and JFS.

So, how has ReiserFS fared in terms of stability and general filesystem robustness since its introduction to the 2. 4 kernel?

I'll cover two topics very important to the Linux development community -- journalling, and the design vision behind ReiserFS.

ReiserFS also has a host of features aimed specifically at improving small file performance.

In the last few months, things have started looking a lot better for ReiserFS.

ReiserFS is a recent filesystem, designed for both speed and survivability.

You should not conclude, for instance, that ReiserFS is a poor performer because it produced some of the largest performance differences.

ReiserFS is, however, more sensitive than most others to improper alignment.

Generally, this allows a ReiserFS filesystem to hold around 5% more than an equivalent ext2 filesystem.

In general, ReiserFS outperforms ext2 in nearly every area, but really shines when it comes to handling small files.

While ReiserFS generally blows the socks off ext2, ReiserFS does have a few special-case performance weaknesses.

Interestingly, ext3 handles journaling very differently than ReiserFS and other journaling filesystems do.

So how does ReiserFS go about offering such excellent small file performance?

Summary: With the 2. 4 release of Linux come a host of new filesystem possibilities, including Reiserfs, XFS, GFS, and others.

However, a couple of properties of XFS' journal make this issue less common than it is with ReiserFS.

In this article, I'll share my experiences along with feedback and status updates from the ReiserFS, ext3, and XFS development teams.

Be sure to check out the ReiserFS mailing list archive, too.

But how good is ReiserFS' small file performance in practice?

Summary: With the 2. 4 release of Linux come many new filesystem possibilities, including Reiserfs, XFS, GFS, and others.

In fact, ReiserFS is around eight to fifteen times faster than ext2 when handling files smaller than one k in size!

ReiserFS sparse file performance will be significantly worse than ext2.

Yet despite all this, the most exciting thing about ReiserFS is what it will become in the future.

One of the nicest things about XFS is that, like ReiserFS, it doesn't generate a lot of unnecessary disk activity.

Also, ReiserFS doesn't have a good track record of NFS compatibility and has poor sparse file performance.

So, it appears that ReiserFS and the 2. 4 kernel have finally resolved their differences.

Maybe you're using a journalling filesystem such as ReiserFS to reduce fsck time and increase filesystem reliability and performance.

Yes, it's true; ReiserFS does not yet have a "dump" and "restore" implementation.

In my next article, I'll guide you through the process of setting up ReiserFS under Linux 2. 4.

Unlike ext2, ReiserFS doesn't allocate storage space in fixed one k or four k blocks. Instead, it can allocate the exact size it needs.

Traditional Linux file systems such as ext2, ext3, and ReiserFS were significantly improved.

The values for file system creation ranged from 0. 96 (for XFS) to 7. 94 (for ReiserFS), with a mean value of 2. 79.

If you use a program such as resize_reiserfs, this filesystem expansion can also happen while the volume is mounted and being used!

These values ranged from 1. 10 (for XFS and JFS) to 6. 02 (for ReiserFS), with a mean of 2. 10.

Effects on tarball extraction ranged from 1. 04 (for ext4fs) to 25. 53 (for ReiserFS), with a mean of 10. 9.

Once created, we can put an ext2 or ReiserFS filesystem on it, mount it, and use it as we like.

To do this, use the mke2fs command or the mkreiserfs command (RAID-0 and ReiserFS is a great combination! )

Showed how to set up a rock-solid Linux 2. 4-based ReiserFS system

This step is necessary in order to wipe out any remaining ReiserFS metadata; otherwise,