XFS filesystem revisited
FYI. From time to time we have threads about the use of various filesystems (usually degrades rapidly to my fs is better than your fs). I just happened to be reviewing the current Gentoo Handbook - a work in progress, and I noted the following recommendation for XFS (a favorite of many on this list). 4.i. Creating Filesystems ... [ other fs descriptions] XFS is a filesystem with metadata journaling that is fully supported under Gentoo Linux's xfs-sources kernel. It comes with a robust feature-set and is optimized for scalability. We only recommend using this filesystem on Linux systems with high-end SCSI and/or fibre channel storage and a uninterruptible power supply. Because XFS aggressively caches in-transit data in RAM, improperly designed programs (those that don't take proper precautions when writing files to disk and there are quite a few of them) can lose a good deal of data if the system goes down unexpectedly. ... [ other fs desciptions ] It is interesting that this recommendation is only present for XFS among the journaled filesystem choices. -- Collins Richey - Denver Area if you fill your heart with regrets of yesterday and the worries of tomorrow, you have no today to be thankful for. ___ Linux-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe/Suspend/Etc - http://smtp.linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
Re: XFS filesystem revisited
On Thu, 20 Nov 2003, Collins Richey wrote: FYI. From time to time we have threads about the use of various filesystems (usually degrades rapidly to my fs is better than your fs). I just happened to be reviewing the current Gentoo Handbook - a work in progress, and I noted the following recommendation for XFS (a favorite of many on this list). 4.i. Creating Filesystems ... [ other fs descriptions] XFS is a filesystem with metadata journaling that is fully supported under Gentoo Linux's xfs-sources kernel. It comes with a robust feature-set and is optimized for scalability. We only recommend using this filesystem on Linux systems with high-end SCSI and/or fibre channel storage and a uninterruptible power supply. Because XFS aggressively caches in-transit data in RAM, improperly designed programs (those that don't take proper precautions when writing files to disk and there are quite a few of them) can lose a good deal of data if the system goes down unexpectedly. ... [ other fs desciptions ] It is interesting that this recommendation is only present for XFS among the journaled filesystem choices. Its also interesting that the documentation that you've referenced hasn't been well updated in over a year. -- ~~ Lonni J Friedman[EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux Step-by-step TyGeMo http://netllama.ipfox.com ___ Linux-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe/Suspend/Etc - http://smtp.linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
Re: XFS filesystem revisited
Collins, I get the feeling that the Gentoo people are not very interested in XFS and they don't want us using it - although this doc is better than the previous one in which they discourged us from using it. I think they should have the journaling warning on all the journalling systems or none. For what it's worth I've used from the very first Gentoo box and it has worked well - no loses. A couple times I've had to recover (due to X locking up) I booted to the liveCD and ran xfs_check and xfs_repair if necessary. What Gentoo failed to mention is that xfs_repair tells me if there is pending information in the log and that I need to mount and then umount the partition. I do that, the data is committed and xfs_repair fixes it. Collins Richey wrote: FYI. From time to time we have threads about the use of various filesystems (usually degrades rapidly to my fs is better than your fs). I just happened to be reviewing the current Gentoo Handbook - a work in progress, and I noted the following recommendation for XFS (a favorite of many on this list). 4.i. Creating Filesystems ... [ other fs descriptions] XFS is a filesystem with metadata journaling that is fully supported under Gentoo Linux's xfs-sources kernel. It comes with a robust feature-set and is optimized for scalability. We only recommend using this filesystem on Linux systems with high-end SCSI and/or fibre channel storage and a uninterruptible power supply. Because XFS aggressively caches in-transit data in RAM, improperly designed programs (those that don't take proper precautions when writing files to disk and there are quite a few of them) can lose a good deal of data if the system goes down unexpectedly. ... [ other fs desciptions ] It is interesting that this recommendation is only present for XFS among the journaled filesystem choices. -- Brett I. Holcomb [EMAIL PROTECTED] AKA Grunt Registered Linux User #188143 Remove R777 to email ___ Linux-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe/Suspend/Etc - http://smtp.linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
Re: XFS filesystem revisited
Consuming 1.4K bytes, Collins Richey blathered: FYI. From time to time we have threads about the use of various filesystems (usually degrades rapidly to my fs is better than your fs). Well, my FS *is* better than your FS, but I digress. ;-) [Gentoo description of XFS shortcomings snipped] This makes absslutely no sense. I have deliberately yanked power on a running system and haven't lost data. The explanation, at least the section quoted above, entirely disregards the transaction log, which is the reason that XFS is so good - it can replay or roll back the FS to a know state. Kurt -- If a 6600 used paper tape instead of core memory, it would use up tape at about 30 miles/second. -- Grishman, Assembly Language Programming ___ Linux-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe/Suspend/Etc - http://smtp.linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
Re: XFS filesystem revisited
On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 19:47:08 -0500 Brett I. Holcomb [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Collins, I get the feeling that the Gentoo people are not very interested in XFS and they don't want us using it - although this doc is better than the previous one in which they discourged us from using it. I think they should have the journaling warning on all the journalling systems or none. For what it's worth I've used from the very first Gentoo box and it has worked well - no loses. A couple times I've had to recover (due to X locking up) I booted to the liveCD and ran xfs_check and xfs_repair if necessary. What Gentoo failed to mention is that xfs_repair tells me if there is pending information in the log and that I need to mount and then umount the partition. I do that, the data is committed and xfs_repair fixes it. Collins Richey wrote: FYI. From time to time we have threads about the use of various filesystems (usually degrades rapidly to my fs is better than your fs). I just happened to be reviewing the current Gentoo Handbook - a work in progress, and I noted the following recommendation for XFS (a favorite of many on this list). 4.i. Creating Filesystems ... [ other fs descriptions] XFS is a filesystem with metadata journaling that is fully supported under Gentoo Linux's xfs-sources kernel. It comes with a robust feature-set and is optimized for scalability. We only recommend using this filesystem on Linux systems with high-end SCSI and/or fibre channel storage and a uninterruptible power supply. Because XFS aggressively caches in-transit data in RAM, improperly designed programs (those that don't take proper precautions when writing files to disk and there are quite a few of them) can lose a good deal of data if the system goes down unexpectedly. ... [ other fs desciptions ] It is interesting that this recommendation is only present for XFS among the journaled filesystem choices. Brett, Good to hear positive comments. On the other hand, data reported on gentoo usually has a factual basis, i.e. not crafted from whole cloth, so somebody must have had rather unusual experience(s) with the product. BTW, let me emphasize, I'm neither a fan of nor opposed to XFS. Gentoo tends to be fairly conservative with their recommendations (example: they do not recommend gentoo for a production server, which has certainly not stopped many users who contentedly run gentoo servers). The same may well apply to XFS which works well except under whatever unusual circumstances the documenters know. The other possibility, as Lonnie suggested, is that they based the recommendation on an early version of XFS. -- Collins Richey - Denver Area if you fill your heart with regrets of yesterday and the worries of tomorrow, you have no today to be thankful for. ___ Linux-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe/Suspend/Etc - http://smtp.linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
Re: XFS filesystem revisited
Yes, Gentoo is conservative and that's good but at this point XFS has been in the field for a long time and has worked well. I personally feel the Gentoo people don't have a lot of experience with XFS so they just made some comments that are not all that factual (as Kurt Wall pointed out) - or maybe a better choice of words is that they aren't familiar and wrote what they thought was correct. Gentoo has not been a fan of XFS since I started using it. However, I spent a lot of time in this forum watching the threads on the various file systems and the experiences people have had. The result was that I chose XFS to get a file system that could put itself back together and not take a million hours to do it. Lonnie and Kurt have used it a lot and done stress testing on it - real stress testing G - and XFS works well. Collins Richey wrote: On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 19:47:08 -0500 Brett I. Holcomb [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Collins, I get the feeling that the Gentoo people are not very interested in XFS and they don't want us using it - although this doc is better than the previous one in which they discourged us from using it. I think they Good to hear positive comments. On the other hand, data reported on gentoo usually has a factual basis, i.e. not crafted from whole cloth, so somebody must have had rather unusual experience(s) with the product. BTW, let me emphasize, I'm neither a fan of nor opposed to XFS. Gentoo tends to be fairly conservative with their recommendations (example: they do not recommend gentoo for a production server, which has certainly not stopped many users who contentedly run gentoo servers). The same may well apply to XFS which works well except under whatever unusual circumstances the documenters know. The other possibility, as Lonnie suggested, is that they based the recommendation on an early version of XFS. -- Brett I. Holcomb [EMAIL PROTECTED] AKA Grunt Registered Linux User #188143 Remove R777 to email ___ Linux-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe/Suspend/Etc - http://smtp.linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
