Best Filesystem

[thavinci]

Ive been running FreeBSD for years now and have only now on my file server noticed something.

When using UFS2 after the drive is prepared. fdisk,label, etc
i loose a hell of alot of space.

To give example:
a 750Gb drive UFS2 useable space = 609Gb+-
NTFS usable space = 698Gb
ext3fs useable space = 680Gb

please note figures are +-

This is making me wonder if it's not best to use ext3fs in FreeBSD rather than UFS2? What is the performance difference between them? Any input on this issue?

[corey_james]

if you use ZFS - you get even less wastage

[thavinci]

Does FreeBSD support this?
What is the reliability vs other file systems?
Also what data recovery tools are there on the market in case of the unthinkable?


Thank You For Input!

[corey_james]

yes
it's experimental so not very
i doubt there's many

[xiphias]

Remember UFS reserves 8% of the space for root. Factor in that hdd manufacturers stick to 'proper' SI quantities (K = 1000, M = 1000000, G = 1000000000) rather than K = 2^10, M = 2^20, etc

So your 750GB is as far as software is concerned 698GB

Less the 8% reserved for root = 642GB

ext3 isn't supported on FreeBSD, you can use ext3 without journalling if you mount your volumes as ext2

I don't know where the missing 30GB have gone, the figures always added up for me.

[TerryP]

And mounting ext3 as ext2 is less useful then ufs2+soft updates.


of all the file systems I've used or oogled, I generally look most favorably on ext3 and ntfs (but drool over concepts used in zfs). I've however never seen any good reasons to store system data on any thing but the native file system for the BSDS. Except when I need to share it with something else, in which case fat32 and ext2 come into play.

[thavinci]

xiphias: i have no idea where the space went. I will confirm everything first.

TerryP: Less usefull meaning? Worse performance i imagine...


However im running this in file server across network so doubt i will loose anything above what the LAN is already restricting me!
I need space over speed. (Obviously a balance)

Top speed = 12m on 100lan
22m on 1000m

Actual copy rate given...

[xiphias]

UFS2 implements an alternative to journalling called Soft Updates. Soft Updates is an attempt to maintain consistency on the disk, so that recovery from a crash is less of problem. Soft Updates is almost like a journal of metadata held in memory. Ext2 on the otherhand has no journalling functionality, Ext3 is essentially Ext2 with a journal. I think this is what TerryP is referring to.

On a 100Mbps the network is definitely the bottleneck, on a lightly loaded 1000Mbps network the hard drive is the bottle neck. The only time I've achieved the maximum speed of my gigabit network is transferring files already cached in main memory of the source host. I think the speed of your hardware is a bigger concern than the speed differences between file systems on the same hardware.

[Oliver_H]

I'm using UFS2+SU with huge storage areas and sometimes ext3 in Linux with a full journal because of reliability. Ext2 is comparable to FAT in Windows95, some power shortage and you can say good bye to your lovely data

[thavinci]

xiphias: are my network speeds considered acceptable then?

Im very disappointed with 1000m tops of 20-20something copy rate.


As for filesystem, so the conclusion is no matter what i choose the network will be the bottleneck so therefore i might aswell choose one that offers least space lost after format?

[richardpl]

Wonder if anybody of these people ever have read newfs(8) and/or tunefs(8) FreeBSD System Manager's Manual page.

NOTE: Look for -m switch.


Of course UFS2 is the best (Just look comparasion of fs on Wikipedia) - with various GEOM plugins UFS2 is even much better ....

[xiphias]

richardpl, I have already offered the explanation that the default 8% reserved for root as a cause for the missing space. Perhaps you should more carefully read the posts before taking a stab at us. Also UFS2 isn't the best solution for every scenario.

12MB/s is about the max you'll see on a 100Mbps network.
22MB/s is about normal for the read speed of a IDE hard drive
125MB/s is about the max you'll see on a 1Gbps network.

I have managed about 118MB/s copying a 350MB (yes 1.5 seconds for the transfer) file over nfs that was cached in the memory of the source host. If I copy a file from the hdd of the server then I can achieve about 50MB/s. So the hard drive is the bottleneck here (they are sATA by the way)

[richardpl]

Originally Posted by xiphias

richardpl, I have already offered the explanation that the default 8% reserved for root as a cause for the missing space. Perhaps you should more carefully read the posts before taking a stab at us. Also UFS2 isn't the best solution for every scenario.

Sorry but nobody mentioned how to change that 8% to 1% or less ... And I have read whole thread more than once. Backstabing posters .... no I am not doing that

Originally Posted by xiphias

12MB/s is about the max you'll see on a 100Mbps network.
22MB/s is about normal for the read speed of a IDE hard drive
125MB/s is about the max you'll see on a 1Gbps network.

I have managed about 118MB/s copying a 350MB (yes 1.5 seconds for the transfer) file over nfs that was cached in the memory of the source host. If I copy a file from the hdd of the server then I can achieve about 50MB/s. So the hard drive is the bottleneck here (they are sATA by the way)

That's almost correct. My hard disk can do 33MB/s

[xiphias]

Originally Posted by richardpl

That's almost correct. My hard disk can do 33MB/s

Again, I said about normal. The speed can vary widely depending whereabouts on the data is stored on the drive, there are also other considerations to take into account, for example on my laptop with a pATA drive I can see 35MB/s from data at the front of the drive, down to about 27 at the back of the drive. The actual hdd and hdd controller also affect the speed

[harisman]

tuning(7) is your friend.. This man page covers a lot of your issues, together with those richardpl gave you. Read it carefully

[thavinci]

The Drive im getn these speeds from Is a SATA 2 drive on a SATA1 controller.
HDD has 32mb cache.

It is unbelievably fast localy, on windows 2008 i copied a file from the drive to the drive it peaked at 96Mb and settled around 66m.

From drive to another drive peaks at 120mb and drops to more or less same speed.

Just over network even gigabit its pathetic...

Thank you for -m switch, will look into it to see if i can set it to 0%
damn it i want my space!!!

[TerryP]

space is cheap

[thavinci]

Depends how much, and if you have the dosh.

Besides, don't see point in wasting it.

Ive saved 100G already and only done that to a few of my storage drives!

ThankX Guys!

I might now decide to settle with UFS2 with that option!

Just wish i could sort out my LAN speed issue now!

[ephemera]

Originally Posted by thavinci

Thank you for -m switch, will look into it to see if i can set it to 0%

if you set it to 0% and your disk usage is much higher than 92% (100-8) you can kiss performance goodbye.

[thavinci]

Then how do other file systems deal with this issue?
Ie ntfs allows you to utilize almost the entire disk...


i do understand it will decrease performance , but currently im only getn 12m or max 20m over network anyways. Can it get worse than this?