Re: [tlug] Linux Filesystems Comparison Article

[Edward Middleton <edward@example.com>]

Patrick Niessen wrote:
> On 4/27/06, Shawn <javajunkie@example.com> wrote:
>   
>> <from gentoo.org>
>>
>> We only recommend using this filesystem [XFS] on Linux systems with ...
>> an uninterruptible power supply. Because XFS aggressively caches in-
>> transit data in RAM, improperly designed programs (those that don't take
>> proper precautions when writing files to disk and there are quite a few
>> of them) can lose a good deal of data if the system goes down
>> unexpectedly.
>>
>> </from gentoo.org>
>>     
> To be honest I am not sure why they made this recommendation.  From my
> experience of hosting 15 Users Data with Samba on XFS I never had a
> problem with such data loss.

How often do you cut the power to this server while it is in the middle
of writing lots of data to disk.

> If XFS was so risky by default then that would mean that all SGI
> workstations are unstable.
>   

The statement simply says XFS are more sensitive then other filesystems
to power failure which in a default configuration is accurate.

> Of course you can also change the settings to change the caching
> behaviour of xfs.

Which will adversely effect the performance of the filesystem, which is
one of the major reasons why people use XFS.

Edward