What's the best

English Applications
1

I know there is no best. It all depends on what you like or need it for. They used to tell me that about speakers saying it depended on your ears, but they were wrong. There was this little thing called accuracy that determined the matter. But all that aside I would just like to get your reaction to that question concerning file systems.

…For desktop applications.

I’m not trying to start a flame war. I’m just using ext4 at the moment and it’s my understanding that it’s pretty old and may not be the best choice for my desktop system.

What should I use?

Ducks.

2

Hi
What ever works for you is the best one :wink: I use xfs for data files.

Do some tests with your hardware and filesystem(s) eg fio, hdparm etc, look at the i/o schedulers in use.

3

Reading your first post above (yes, I did, even after your thread title did not reveal much about what the thread is about), I get the vague idea that you talk about file system types. Better start a story with the subject from the very start, then people that are not interested can skip things.

4

It ain’t old – it’s mature …

  • And, it’s being continually maintained as an integral part of the Linux Kernel …

Latest changes –

  • Kernel 4.13: increased limit of size and number of extended attributes per file (ea_inode)
  • Kernel 4.13: increased limit of number of files per directory (large_dir)
  • Kernel 5.2: Case sensitivity can optionally be turned off (casefold)
  • Kernel 5.4: support of verity protected files (verity)

For the very latest changes coming soon, check here – <https://kernelnewbies.org/LinuxChanges&gt;

  • Kernel 5.10 –

Ext4 fast commit support, for faster metadata performance

So, change for the sake of change or, take advantage of the latest development cycle – read “effort” … >:)

5

I use Ext4 for / because it makes command line upgrading easier than when using btrfs but I use xfs for /home. Mature Ext4 is 13 years old and mature btrfs is 8 years old. How old is old?

6

I started with ext3 and moved to ext4 about 13 years ago.

I have not lost any data due to ext4 bugs - hard drive failures (yes they fail) but good backups and tested recovery are a must for any file system.

I laugh at a former Fortune 10 company that I used to support - they think snapshots are backups - until the drive fails and they lose everything.

All my backup harddrives and nvme drives are ext4 - if it ain’t broke don’t change it.

7

Why do you use xfs for home/data files?

8

Hi
Because it’s the default… :wink: It doesn’t really get a workout on my systems… maybe when building packages, but had no issues with it.

9

It’s stable, reliable, mature, has a Journal, has a very good I/O performance, is designed for scenarios with large files and many files …

  • Which sounds as if there isn’t much difference to the performance ext4 delivers …
  • Except that, XFS is a tick better than ext4 for some usage scenarios – but, for most non-commercial Use-Cases, the difference isn’t so much …

Next question –

  • Btrfs – COWS – “Copy on Write” – no journal but, snapshots and, things like RAID support and LVM built-in …
  • Yes, possibly for Desktop and Laptop scenarios a good choice – depends on your Use-Case …