[oclug] Help comparing ReiserFS and ext3 for raid5 on a web server.

[Patrick Smith]

Gerard Godin wrote:
> I was thinking of going Reiser for speed and large capacity (we expect
> many many files) but I read somewhere today that ext3 might be just as
> good now and offer better protection against data corruption.
> 
> I can't seem to google a good comparison. 
> 
> Thanks for input and/or suggestions

When I was looking at benchmarks (a year or so ago), there didn't seem 
to be much difference in performance generally.  One exception:  ext3 
was quite a bit slower in deleting files.  This would be noticeable only 
when deleting extremely large numbers at once.

 From what is said, ReiserFS's strengths are in handling large 
directories, and large numbers of tiny (< 4k) files.  On the other hand, 
it has been said to be slow on extremely large single files.  I don't 
know to what extent the last point has been addressed in later releases, 
nor how well ext3 handles large directories or many small files.

Even with a journalling file system, it's probably a good idea to run 
fsck every now and then.  I have the impression that reiserfsck runs 
somewhat faster than e2fsck.