What filesystem?

Started by Steve Crawfordabout 23 years ago8 messagesgeneral
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#1Steve Crawford
scrawford@pinpointresearch.com

A am about to build another PostgreSQL server on Linux. Has anyone compared
the merits of running PostgreSQL on EXT2, EXT3, JFS, XFS, ReiserFS, etc.?

Cheers,
Steve

#2Andrew Sullivan
andrew@libertyrms.info
In reply to: Steve Crawford (#1)
Re: What filesystem?

On Fri, Feb 21, 2003 at 03:15:09PM -0800, Steve Crawford wrote:

the merits of running PostgreSQL on EXT2, EXT3, JFS, XFS, ReiserFS, etc.?

ext2 is really not crash-safe. I think I'd think twice.

There have been some recent reports about corruption under reiserfs,
but not much detail on it.

The performance list recently had a discussion of performance and
ext3.

I'd be _real_ interested in hearing about xfs; when I used to admin
IRIX boxes, I thought very highly of xfs. It was bulletproof. But I
have no idea what it's like on Linux.

A

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Andrew Sullivan                         204-4141 Yonge Street
Liberty RMS                           Toronto, Ontario Canada
<andrew@libertyrms.info>                              M2P 2A8
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#3Chris Browne
cbbrowne@acm.org
In reply to: Andrew Sullivan (#2)
Re: What filesystem?

In the last exciting episode, andrew@libertyrms.info (Andrew Sullivan) wrote:

On Fri, Feb 21, 2003 at 03:15:09PM -0800, Steve Crawford wrote:

the merits of running PostgreSQL on EXT2, EXT3, JFS, XFS, ReiserFS, etc.?

ext2 is really not crash-safe. I think I'd think twice.

There have been some recent reports about corruption under reiserfs,
but not much detail on it.

There were some releases that weren't terribly stable, though by the
same token, I was using it throughout that /entire/ period, without
encountering any of those vaguely-reported losses of data.

The performance list recently had a discussion of performance and
ext3.

I'd be _real_ interested in hearing about xfs; when I used to admin
IRIX boxes, I thought very highly of xfs. It was bulletproof. But
I have no idea what it's like on Linux.

I've got some data sitting atop JFS; the next time I do a reinstall
"of stuff" I'm thinking of having some partitions for different
filesystems so that some DBs can be at least somewhat compared on an
assortment of filesystems.

As of 2.4.20, the options included with "standard" kernels are:
- ext3
- JFS
- ReiserFS

XFS is still in the "needs quasi-manual patching" stage, and I gather
is still a ways away from integration with the "Official Torvalds
Kernel Stream." That unfortunately means that you're always left with
the fragile matter of needing to keep kernels kicking around on other
systems. (The perpetual problem: What if a disk dies and your
filesystems are sitting in a form that requires that you compile a
kernel from scratch, thus dictating having a working system?
Blech...)
--
(reverse (concatenate 'string "gro.mca@" "enworbbc"))
http://cbbrowne.com/info/fs.html
Sleep is a poor subsititute for caffeine. -Pat Dughi

#4Joshua D. Drake
jd@commandprompt.com
In reply to: Steve Crawford (#1)
Re: What filesystem?

Hello,

JFS and XFS are the most thoroughly tested. EXT2 is the slowest but
very very stable. ReiserFS is good, EXT3 is good as long as you are
running 2.4.20 + the source EXT3 patches.

Joshua Drake

scrawford@pinpointresearch.com (Steve Crawford) wrote in message news:<20030221231509.A97CA103BD@polaris.pinpointresearch.com>...

Show quoted text

A am about to build another PostgreSQL server on Linux. Has anyone compared=
=20
the merits of running PostgreSQL on EXT2, EXT3, JFS, XFS, ReiserFS, etc.?

Cheers,
Steve

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#5Neil Conway
neilc@samurai.com
In reply to: Joshua D. Drake (#4)
Re: What filesystem?

On Sat, 2003-02-22 at 00:25, Joshua Drake wrote:

JFS and XFS are the most thoroughly tested. EXT2 is the slowest but
very very stable. ReiserFS is good, EXT3 is good as long as you are
running 2.4.20 + the source EXT3 patches.

I'd be quite surprised if ext2 was any slower than ext3. Also, since
most PostgreSQL disk I/O involves large files, I wouldn't think ReiserFS
would outperform ext2 either.

Cheers,

Neil
--
Neil Conway <neilc@samurai.com> || PGP Key ID: DB3C29FC

#6Shridhar Daithankar
shridhar_daithankar@persistent.co.in
In reply to: Neil Conway (#5)
Re: What filesystem?

On Saturday 22 Feb 2003 11:41 pm, you wrote:

On Sat, 2003-02-22 at 00:25, Joshua Drake wrote:

JFS and XFS are the most thoroughly tested. EXT2 is the slowest but
very very stable. ReiserFS is good, EXT3 is good as long as you are
running 2.4.20 + the source EXT3 patches.

I'd be quite surprised if ext2 was any slower than ext3. Also, since
most PostgreSQL disk I/O involves large files, I wouldn't think ReiserFS
would outperform ext2 either.

It does. By quite a large margin. I don't remember exactly but it can be
between 30%-60% on single IDE drive.

Apparently tree indexes in reiser helps it a lot.

Shridhar

#7scott.marlowe
scott.marlowe@ihs.com
In reply to: Shridhar Daithankar (#6)
Re: What filesystem?

On Sun, 23 Feb 2003, Shridhar Daithankar<shridhar_daithankar@persistent.co.in> wrote:

On Saturday 22 Feb 2003 11:41 pm, you wrote:

On Sat, 2003-02-22 at 00:25, Joshua Drake wrote:

JFS and XFS are the most thoroughly tested. EXT2 is the slowest but
very very stable. ReiserFS is good, EXT3 is good as long as you are
running 2.4.20 + the source EXT3 patches.

I'd be quite surprised if ext2 was any slower than ext3. Also, since
most PostgreSQL disk I/O involves large files, I wouldn't think ReiserFS
would outperform ext2 either.

It does. By quite a large margin. I don't remember exactly but it can be
between 30%-60% on single IDE drive.

Apparently tree indexes in reiser helps it a lot.

This is especially true in file systems with lots of small to medium
files.

For large smaller directory structures, ext2 is pretty good, but fades as
your fs grows.

As for XFS on linux, I'd guess it's probably pretty good, seeing as how
IRIX isn't available for the newest beast from SGI, the Altix which is
their up tp 64 way linux box. SGI is way more dedicated to Linux than
most people realize.

A couple years ago when their linux port of xfs was still beta I watched a
guy in a booth demoing it at a linux con and it was amazing. Truly
amazing.

#8Bruce Momjian
bruce@momjian.us
In reply to: scott.marlowe (#7)
Re: What filesystem?

See my PDF on hardware tuning in the File System section:

http://candle.pha.pa.us/main/writings/pgsql/performance.pdf

The report that Reiser is faster than other file systems for PostgreSQL
doesn't match other reports I have gotten.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

scott.marlowe wrote:

On Sun, 23 Feb 2003, Shridhar Daithankar<shridhar_daithankar@persistent.co.in> wrote:

On Saturday 22 Feb 2003 11:41 pm, you wrote:

On Sat, 2003-02-22 at 00:25, Joshua Drake wrote:

JFS and XFS are the most thoroughly tested. EXT2 is the slowest but
very very stable. ReiserFS is good, EXT3 is good as long as you are
running 2.4.20 + the source EXT3 patches.

I'd be quite surprised if ext2 was any slower than ext3. Also, since
most PostgreSQL disk I/O involves large files, I wouldn't think ReiserFS
would outperform ext2 either.

It does. By quite a large margin. I don't remember exactly but it can be
between 30%-60% on single IDE drive.

Apparently tree indexes in reiser helps it a lot.

This is especially true in file systems with lots of small to medium
files.

For large smaller directory structures, ext2 is pretty good, but fades as
your fs grows.

As for XFS on linux, I'd guess it's probably pretty good, seeing as how
IRIX isn't available for the newest beast from SGI, the Altix which is
their up tp 64 way linux box. SGI is way more dedicated to Linux than
most people realize.

A couple years ago when their linux port of xfs was still beta I watched a
guy in a booth demoing it at a linux con and it was amazing. Truly
amazing.

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