Re: [CentOS] OT:Which filesystem to use with large files

2009-12-23 Thread Les Mikesell
carlopmart wrote:
 Hi all,
 
   Recently I have installed a centOS 5.4 server to use as a home NAS server. 
 I need 
 to use large files (8GB minimum) inside of it to serve via iSCSI services. 
 Which 
 filesystem do you recommends me to reach maximum performance: xfs, ext3, 
 ext4, gfs2 
 ??

None of them should have a problem with large files and any differences 
in the filesystem metadata handling will be covered up by the underlying 
disk access speed of a large amount of data per file.  The bigger 
differences are in how fast they can create or delete large numbers of 
files.

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   Les Mikesell
lesmikes...@gmail.com
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Re: [CentOS] OT:Which filesystem to use with large files

2009-12-23 Thread carlopmart
Les Mikesell wrote:
 carlopmart wrote:
 Hi all,

   Recently I have installed a centOS 5.4 server to use as a home NAS server. 
 I need 
 to use large files (8GB minimum) inside of it to serve via iSCSI services. 
 Which 
 filesystem do you recommends me to reach maximum performance: xfs, ext3, 
 ext4, gfs2 
 ??
 
 None of them should have a problem with large files and any differences 
 in the filesystem metadata handling will be covered up by the underlying 
 disk access speed of a large amount of data per file.  The bigger 
 differences are in how fast they can create or delete large numbers of 
 files.
 

Thanks Les. then if I would to use sparse files to create these large files, 
which 
can be the best form: dd of qcow2 format for example??

-- 
CL Martinez
carlopmart {at} gmail {d0t} com
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Re: [CentOS] OT:Which filesystem to use with large files

2009-12-23 Thread Kwan Lowe
On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 10:47 AM, carlopmart carlopm...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hi all,

  Recently I have installed a centOS 5.4 server to use as a home NAS server. I 
 need
 to use large files (8GB minimum) inside of it to serve via iSCSI services. 
 Which
 filesystem do you recommends me to reach maximum performance: xfs, ext3, 
 ext4, gfs2
 ??

I don't know if this is still true, but when I last checked a couple
years ago, the recommendation was for LVM device backed iSCSI targets.

http://osdir.com/ml/linux.iscsi.tgt.devel/2008-09/msg0.html

With LVMs you'd of course lose the flexibility of file-backed targets
and the ability to do sparse files are you're intending..

dd if=/dev/zero of=iqn.2009-12.com.mydomain:storage.disk01.foo.foo
bs=1 count=0 seek=16G
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Re: [CentOS] OT:Which filesystem to use with large files

2009-12-23 Thread carlopmart
Kwan Lowe wrote:
 On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 10:47 AM, carlopmart carlopm...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hi all,

  Recently I have installed a centOS 5.4 server to use as a home NAS server. 
 I need
 to use large files (8GB minimum) inside of it to serve via iSCSI services. 
 Which
 filesystem do you recommends me to reach maximum performance: xfs, ext3, 
 ext4, gfs2
 ??
 
 I don't know if this is still true, but when I last checked a couple
 years ago, the recommendation was for LVM device backed iSCSI targets.
 
 http://osdir.com/ml/linux.iscsi.tgt.devel/2008-09/msg0.html
 
 With LVMs you'd of course lose the flexibility of file-backed targets
 and the ability to do sparse files are you're intending..
 
 dd if=/dev/zero of=iqn.2009-12.com.mydomain:storage.disk01.foo.foo
 bs=1 count=0 seek=16G

LVM was my first option and performance it is very very good with iSCSI, but 
backup 
and restore it is a problem with LVM. For these reason I need to use large 
files on 
this server...


-- 
CL Martinez
carlopmart {at} gmail {d0t} com
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Re: [CentOS] OT:Which filesystem to use with large files

2009-12-23 Thread Les Mikesell
carlopmart wrote:
 Kwan Lowe wrote:
 On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 10:47 AM, carlopmart carlopm...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hi all,

  Recently I have installed a centOS 5.4 server to use as a home NAS server. 
 I need
 to use large files (8GB minimum) inside of it to serve via iSCSI services. 
 Which
 filesystem do you recommends me to reach maximum performance: xfs, ext3, 
 ext4, gfs2
 ??
 I don't know if this is still true, but when I last checked a couple
 years ago, the recommendation was for LVM device backed iSCSI targets.

 http://osdir.com/ml/linux.iscsi.tgt.devel/2008-09/msg0.html

 With LVMs you'd of course lose the flexibility of file-backed targets
 and the ability to do sparse files are you're intending..

 dd if=/dev/zero of=iqn.2009-12.com.mydomain:storage.disk01.foo.foo
 bs=1 count=0 seek=16G
 
 LVM was my first option and performance it is very very good with iSCSI, but 
 backup 
 and restore it is a problem with LVM. For these reason I need to use large 
 files on 
 this server...

Doesn't sparse file use leave you in danger of (a) overcommiting the 
actual available space, and (b) badly fragmenting the on-disk locations 
when the space is actually allocated?   I think xfs has some support for 
allocating sparse space at creation time without waiting for real 
writes, but I don't know how to use it.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
lesmikes...@gmail.com
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Re: [CentOS] OT:Which filesystem to use with large files

2009-12-23 Thread Kwan Lowe
 With LVMs you'd of course lose the flexibility of file-backed targets
 and the ability to do sparse files are you're intending..

 dd if=/dev/zero of=iqn.2009-12.com.mydomain:storage.disk01.foo.foo
 bs=1 count=0 seek=16G

 LVM was my first option and performance it is very very good with iSCSI, but 
 backup
 and restore it is a problem with LVM. For these reason I need to use large 
 files on
 this server...

I actually prefer backing up LVMs.. I use the snapshot feature which
means I can backup a live volume. Works well.
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Re: [CentOS] OT:Which filesystem to use with large files

2009-12-23 Thread carlopmart
Kwan Lowe wrote:
 With LVMs you'd of course lose the flexibility of file-backed targets
 and the ability to do sparse files are you're intending..

 dd if=/dev/zero of=iqn.2009-12.com.mydomain:storage.disk01.foo.foo
 bs=1 count=0 seek=16G
 LVM was my first option and performance it is very very good with iSCSI, but 
 backup
 and restore it is a problem with LVM. For these reason I need to use large 
 files on
 this server...
 
 I actually prefer backing up LVMs.. I use the snapshot feature which
 means I can backup a live volume. Works well.

But I can't use snapshot feature because under these lvm partitions there are 
ZFS, 
NTFS and so on filesystems that linux can't access ...



-- 
CL Martinez
carlopmart {at} gmail {d0t} com
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Re: [CentOS] OT:Which filesystem to use with large files

2009-12-23 Thread Kwan Lowe
 I actually prefer backing up LVMs.. I use the snapshot feature which
 means I can backup a live volume. Works well.

 But I can't use snapshot feature because under these lvm partitions there are 
 ZFS,
 NTFS and so on filesystems that linux can't access ...

Not sure that I'm understanding.. The snapshots are block level, so no
knowledge of the filesystem on the LVs are needed. In fact, some are
raw devices and don't have filesystems at all.
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Re: [CentOS] OT:Which filesystem to use with large files

2009-12-23 Thread MHR
On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 2:50 PM, carlopmart carlopm...@gmail.com wrote:
 Kwan Lowe wrote:

 I actually prefer backing up LVMs.. I use the snapshot feature which
 means I can backup a live volume. Works well.

 But I can't use snapshot feature because under these lvm partitions there are 
 ZFS,
 NTFS and so on filesystems that linux can't access ...


There is a perfectly usable NTFS support file system available for
CentOS/Linux - I use it from time to time for disk backups.

Take a look at NTFS-fuse.

BTW, volume backups generally do not require knowledge of the
underlying file system structures, so this shouldn't be an issue
anyway.

mhr
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