[lug] XFS filesystem core code goes into AC series

[D. Stimits]

The Matt wrote:

> On Tue, 2003-04-29 at 15:31, D. Stimits wrote:
>
> >I don't know how many of you are interested in the XFS filesystem, but
> >the core code for XFS is now merged into 2.4.21rc1-ac3. Hopefully that
> >means it'll make its way into the 2.4.x series of kernels within a
> >couple of releases of the standard kernel. If it is in an AC series
> >kernel, chances are Redhat will make XFS filesystem an option soon, even
> >if it isn't in the main kernel yet (well, don't hold your breath, but it
> >seems reasonable now).
>
>
> OK, I'll ask.  I've used FATxx, NTFS, Extx, and BeFS, but never XFS.
> What are the pros/cons of XFS compared to, say, Ext3 and ReiserFS.  My
> limited knowledge is that XFS is what you use on very fast (SCSI320 and
> Fibre Channel) systems, ReiserFS is good for small files, and
> ext3...well, because I always used ext2, I've never looked elsewhere.
>
> I know they're all in Gentoo (also JFS), which I plan to try out as soon
> as 1.4 appears, so it'd be good to know what they are all like.
>
XFS is a meta-journaling filesystem, something like ext3 and ReiserFS. 
Unlike ext3, it never needs fsck.

In terms of performance, XFS suffers slightly with small files, and is 
by far the fastest performer with large files and large filesystems...it 
is used by the SGI (authors of XFS) systems that are part of the motion 
picture special effects industry, where data rendering farms might have 
thousands of terabytes of data. Several real-time extensions and special 
streaming extensions are available to custom applications.

In terms of generally useful features, it has POSIX ACL's, otherewise 
known as Access Control List. That is an extension to the regular 
user-group-other permission set, and allows very fine-grained permission 
control. This, in turn, is useful on huge systems where standard 
permissions are not enough, as well as in conjunction with SAMBA, where 
ACL's can be used to deal with NT style permissions. Anyone managing 
large numbers of users will be glad to have ACL's, especially if 
security is important.

A common home user might find this useful if burning a lot of ISO's to 
CD or DVD, since it handles 650 MB or larger files very efficiently.

D. Stimits, stimits AT attbi DOT com