[lug] Best block size?

[Matthew Snelham]

On 15 Sep 2003 11:46 AM or thereabouts, The Matt wrote:
> Well, I can't answer this very well, but I'm wondering what filesystem
> you are thinking of using?  I'd probably recommend ReiserFS if you have
> many thousands of small files.  ReiserFS doesn't really use blocks but
> trees.  It can often be 10x faster than ext3 on small files.  On large
> files (e.g., ISOs) it's usually comparable to ext3 (no big advantage).
> 
> But, if doesn't work well with NFS or software RAID.  So, if that's what
> you'll be using, ReiserFS won't work.

Modern versions of ReiserFS work fine in both NFS and software RAID
configurations.  There were problems early in the 2.4 series, but they have
since been ironed out.   Quota support even works now, though that is
somewhat less mature than the equivilant in ext3.

My primary NFS server is currently exporting a 96 GB, ReiserFS, software RAID1
/home partition to 6 machines.  Haven't had any issues.

I've also deployed ReiserFS as the primary filesystem on a 256 node
cluster, and it survived stress testing without a single error or lost
byte.  Can't say the same for ext3, which I've has lock up machines with a
number of different kernel versions. (of course, I've used ext3 on probably
5-6 times as many servers as Reiser, so toss some salt over your shoulder
here)

And of course, YMMV.

--Matthew
infinite at sigalrm.com

--
   "I've been talking to dead rabbits and feeding bloody walls. 
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