4 ms·

I’ve defaulted to XFS since it became available for Linux, and never had any problems. Only once, some time around 2009, did I try ext3 and it forgot to flush a

I’ve defaulted to XFS since it became available for Linux, and never had any problems. Only once, some time around 2009, did I try ext3 and it forgot to flush a lot of data that were lost. I don’t see why anyone would use ext over XFS.

davidgerard 3y ago
XFS is all but unmaintained, which may be a good reason to be cautious. Very stable code, but the world may change out from under it.
- snvzz 3y ago
  In a sane system, the world would not "change out from under it". Linux is a special category of mess.
  - crote 3y ago
    Why would the world not change? When XFS was designed, the storage ecosystem was spinning rust attached using PATA and SCSI. We've developed quite a bit since then, with things like SAS, NVMe, and SSDs. Storage have gotten over an order of magnitude more throughput, over an order of magnitude less latency, and several orders of magnitude more IOPS. Running a filesystem designed for ancient hardware means you won't be taking advantage of several decades of innovation.
    - snvzz 3y ago
      The world here means the APIs XFS is built on top of. Yes, it is possible to maintain stable APIs and even offer multiple versions of. Other systems (even AmigaOS in the 80s) manage to do so. Linux is a special case.
    - jacobgorm 3y ago
      In what ways would you say that ext4 takes advantage of the latest several decades of innovation, where XFS does not? Both XFS and ext2 were first released around 1993, and it is safe to say that XFS was more advanced than ext2 at that time, given that it had journaling and ext2 did not. If I wanted something actually novel, I would go for ZFS or one of its clones.
- diegocg 3y ago
  XFS is adding pretty radical features and reworking its internals in interesting ways, it's Ext4 the one that doesn't really see that many changes these days.

4 ms·

I’ve defaulted to XFS since it became available for Linux, and never had any problems. Only once, some time around 2009, did I try ext3 and it forgot to flush a

by jacobgorm 3y ago

davidgerard 3y ago
XFS is all but unmaintained, which may be a good reason to be cautious. Very stable code, but the world may change out from under it.
- snvzz 3y ago
  In a sane system, the world would not "change out from under it". Linux is a special category of mess.
  - crote 3y ago
    Why would the world not change? When XFS was designed, the storage ecosystem was spinning rust attached using PATA and SCSI. We've developed quite a bit since then, with things like SAS, NVMe, and SSDs. Storage have gotten over an order of magnitude more throughput, over an order of magnitude less latency, and several orders of magnitude more IOPS. Running a filesystem designed for ancient hardware means you won't be taking advantage of several decades of innovation.
    - snvzz 3y ago
      The world here means the APIs XFS is built on top of. Yes, it is possible to maintain stable APIs and even offer multiple versions of. Other systems (even AmigaOS in the 80s) manage to do so. Linux is a special case.
    - jacobgorm 3y ago
      In what ways would you say that ext4 takes advantage of the latest several decades of innovation, where XFS does not? Both XFS and ext2 were first released around 1993, and it is safe to say that XFS was more advanced than ext2 at that time, given that it had journaling and ext2 did not. If I wanted something actually novel, I would go for ZFS or one of its clones.
- diegocg 3y ago
  XFS is adding pretty radical features and reworking its internals in interesting ways, it's Ext4 the one that doesn't really see that many changes these days.