Filesystems: Difference between revisions

208 bytes added ,  24 September 2009
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This page serves to give some information on possible filesystems for Linux machines, in particular those that may be used for very large filesystems (many TB). The list is sorted by age!
This page serves to give some information on possible filesystems for Linux machines, in particular those that may be used for very large filesystems (many TB). The list is sorted by age!
== XFS ==
* SGI's filesystem (1994) that was ported to Linux around 2001
* no 16 GB limitation
* no compression and checksumming (data-integrity) features


== Ext3 ==
== Ext3 ==
* fairly old, but well established and well behaved
* fairly old (2001), but well established and well behaved
* does not support more than 16GB
* does not support more than 16GB (2^36 bytes)
* does not support transparent compression  
* does not support transparent compression  
* does not support checksumming (a data-integrity feature)
* does not support checksumming (a data-integrity feature)
== XFS ==
* SGI's filesystem that was ported to Linux some years ago
* no 16 GB limitation
* no compression and checksumming (data-integrity) features


== ZFS ==
== ZFS ==
* Sun's filesystem which is natively available on Solaris and OpenSolaris (both of which are freely available)
* Sun's filesystem which is natively available on Solaris (since 2005)) and OpenSolaris (both of which are freely available)
* no 16 GB limitation; max size is 2^128 bytes
* (optional) transparent (gzip) compression (LZO compression available as patch)
* (optional) transparent (gzip) compression (LZO compression available as patch)
* atomic updates - means that the on-disk state is consistent at all times, there's no need to perform a lengthy filesystem check after forced reboots/power failures
* atomic updates - means that the on-disk state is consistent at all times, there's no need to perform a lengthy filesystem check after forced reboots/power failures
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== Ext4 ==
== Ext4 ==
* fairly new in Linux kernel (since 2.6.27 or so); ext4 is based on ext3 (same developers)
* fairly new in Linux kernel (stable since 2008); ext4 is based on ext3 (same developers)
* becoming the default of new versions of Linux distros (Fedora, Ubuntu, ...)
* becoming the default of new versions of Linux distros (Fedora, Ubuntu, ...)
* no 16 GB limitation
* no 16 GB limitation; max size is 1 EiB (1 exbibyte = 2^60 bytes)
* no compression and checksumming (data-integrity) features
* no compression and checksumming (data-integrity) features


== btrfs ==
== btrfs ==
* latest addition to native Linux filesystems; considered stable since 2.6.31 kernel (http://www.h-online.com/open/Kernel-Log-2-6-31-Tracking--/features/113671)
* latest addition to native Linux filesystems; considered stable since 2.6.31 kernel (2009; see http://www.h-online.com/open/Kernel-Log-2-6-31-Tracking--/features/113671)
* no 16 GB limitation; max size is 16 Eib (1 exbibyte = 2^60 bytes)
* (optional) transparent (zlib) compression
* (optional) transparent (zlib) compression
* checksumming for data integrity is implemented
* checksumming for data integrity is implemented
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