NAS Ext3 vs. Ext4

[stevech]

Is there a truly significant difference between Ext3 and Ext4 in terms of file system robustness and is there an important performance difference?

 

[Ronv42]

Search is your friend:

http://www.bing.com/search?q=ext3+vs+ext4&src=IE-SearchBox&FORM=IESR02

 

[htismaqe]

EXT4 supports much larger filesystems and directory structures. It's also optimized much better (as you would expect from a new FS iteration).

In general, EXT3 decreased performance over EXT2 because of all of the added features. EXT4 gets back to EXT2 performance while retaining, and even improving, many of the features that were added in EXT3.

 

[stevech]

Search is your friend:

http://www.bing.com/search?q=ext3+vs+ext4&src=IE-SearchBox&FORM=IESR02

I've a bing-free zone here.
But I made an exception!

Bar chart at this URL shows a markedly faster write data rate with ext4.
http://askubuntu.com/questions/4490...en-ext3-ext4-from-a-generic-users-prespective

 

[Ronv42]

I've a bing-free zone here.
But I made an exception!

I just don't want to give Google more info on me

I have moved from ext2 to ext4 on my newer routers that support ext4. Also you may want to make sure you use noatime in your mount to keep the file system from updating timestamps each time a file is accessed if you need more performance. Since I run a squid cache on a usb3 thumb drive this reduced the io load on the drive.

Here is a good link:

http://blog.smartlogicsolutions.com...ions-to-improve-ext4-file-system-performance/

 

[htismaqe]

I use DuckDuckGo.

 

[htismaqe]

been answered

The response previous to mine was "Google it" which really isn't an acceptable answer.

Your link is broken, btw.

 

[sinshiva]

probably too late, but...

there are a lot of factors that come into play, but the gist of it is that ext4 is more hardware intensive. ext4 SHOULD benefit more from the nas' hardware, though. if you have a lot going on with the NAS (dlna, scanners of some kind, etc), ext3 may be better

 

[stevech]

probably too late, but...
the gist of it is that ext4 is more hardware intensive.

Hmmm. OK.

 

[htismaqe]

Steve, I would recommend you take a look at this quite long article if you're up for it. It goes into a great amount of detail and benchmarks a ton of different variables. Keep in mind it was written in 2010.

EXT3 vs EXT4 vs XFS vs BTRFS linux filesystems benchmark

If you're using newer hardware, like a consumer NAS for example, there's really not a reason to use EXT3 anymore.

 

[stevech]

Steve, I would recommend you take a look at this quite long article if you're up for it. It goes into a great amount of detail and benchmarks a ton of different variables. Keep in mind it was written in 2010.

EXT3 vs EXT4 vs XFS vs BTRFS linux filesystems benchmark

If you're using newer hardware, like a consumer NAS for example, there's really not a reason to use EXT3 anymore.

Thanks, I'll read that.
My Synology 2-bay has used EXT4 for a long time. I'm just curious.

 

[Ronv42]

Most of the defaults I am seeing for Linux distributions are now set at ext4 file system. With the larger volume sizes and still having a journal along with lower CPU overhead and recovery it beats the ext2.

A recovery from a dirty shutdown on large ext2 systems could take forever.

 

[htismaqe]

I've long since been using EXT4 for VMs and on my home NAS boxes (that support it, used XFS on Buffalo). I don't notice a whole lot of difference but there are enhancement with EXT4 that go beyond simple performance and most of the major distros are now recommending you use EXT4.

If you Synology defaults to EXT4, I would definitely use it.

 

[stevech]

Thanks much.