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Types of filesystems ext2,ext3 ReiserFS XFS GFS GPFS Lustre Resources
Comparison of filesystems in Linux
PV208 Advanced Topics of Linux Administration
Bc. Pavol Babinčák
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March 2008
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Types of filesystems ext2,ext3 ReiserFS XFS GFS GPFS Lustre Resources
Types of filesystems
* Disk file systems:
* ext2, ext3
* ReiserFS
* XFS
* many more
* Shared disk file systems (known also as SAN or cluster
filestems):
* GFS
* GPFS
* Lustre
* others
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Types of filesystems ext2,ext3 ReiserFS XFS GFS GPFS Lustre Resources
Extended file system (ext2, ext3)
Designed for Linux. Default file system for many popular Linux
distributions. Second extended file system:
* very stable
* through fault can hurt file system
* unfortunately repair is easy ... but quite slow
ext3 = ext2 + journaling:
* compatible with ext2
* repair is fast ... but some metadata operations are slow
* automatic consistency check
* immutable files and append-only files
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Types of filesystems ext2,ext3 ReiserFS XFS GFS GPFS Lustre Resources
ReiserFS
Third version of ReiserFS in Linux kernel. Reiser4 not yet merged
into mainline.
* good for small files
* not so stable
* less support
Features in Reiser4:
* plugin driven filesystem
* transactions
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Types of filesystems ext2,ext3 ReiserFS XFS GFS GPFS Lustre Resources
XFS
One of first journaling FS under UNIX. In Linux kernel since 2.4.
* best for large files, big directories, big filesystems
* slow repair
* creation/deletion of directory entries are slow
Features in XFS:
* delayed allocation for reducing fragmentation
* native backup/restore utilities able to make FS dump without
unmounting
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Types of filesystems ext2,ext3 ReiserFS XFS GFS GPFS Lustre Resources
Global File System (GFS)
GFS2 is available in kernel since 2.6.19.
* cluster filesystem
* all nodes are equal, running are controlling access to shared
resources
* failure cluster member affects only other members using
shared resources
Features:
* direct I/O support allows databases to acheive high
performance
* dynamic multi-path routing around failed components in SAN
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Types of filesystems ext2,ext3 ReiserFS XFS GFS GPFS Lustre Resources
General Parallel File System (GPFS)
* proprierary, generally bundled with IBM hardware
* used on very large clusters (up to 2000 nodes)
* high performance and grids
GPFS features:
* SQL based syntax policies for file placement and management
* shared disk or network block I/O configuration
* offer clustered NFS (High Availability)
* snapshot by copy-on-write
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Types of filesystems ext2,ext3 ReiserFS XFS GFS GPFS Lustre Resources
Lustre
Named from words Linux and Cluster. It is not in main kernel but
patches to support it exists. Architecture:
* uses modified ext3 as storage FS
* single metadata target
* typicaly 2-8 object storage servers
* clients accessing to data
Features:
* support for high availability, recovery, transparent reboots
* data blocks stripped across objects (bandwith agregation, not
limited by size of target object)
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Types of filesystems ext2,ext3 ReiserFS XFS GFS GPFS Lustre Resources
Resources
* Choosing and Tuning Linux File Systems:
http://www.valhenson.org/review/choosing.pdf
* Design and Implementation of the Second Extended
Filesystem:
http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net/ext2intro.html
* Symmetric Cluster Architecture and Component Technical
Specifications (about GFS):
http://people.redhat.com/~teigland/sca.pdf
Wikipedia keywords: Reiserfs, XFS, IBM General Parallel File
System, Lustre (file system), Shared disk file system
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Types of filesystems ext2,ext3 ReiserFS XFS GFS GPFS Lustre Resources
Thanks for your attention