[gentoo-user] Re: Best File System For Linux

[Farhan Ahmed]

Hi all,	
	First of all I'm sorry for not replying to this thread as I 
was busy with my exams.

	Anyway thanks for all your replies, I just want to present the
my file system requirements in more elaborate way. I'll be using many
partitions for different types of files to get maximum performance. As
said earlier it's a Home Desktop System. From what I've read I'll be
using the following file systems..

  /dev/BOOT /boot ext2 noauto,noatime 1 2

No changes to /boot partition I guess..

  /dev/ROOT / reiserfs noatime,notail	0 1

Since ROOT partition hold many small files I guess ReiserFS suits it
best, but the problem is of fragmentation. Turning notail off solves it?

  /dev/SWAP none swap sw 0 0

Here's a fstab entry whose options I don't know at all.. Any options that
can increase the performance.. I'm having 512MB System RAM and my Swap
partition is 2000MB.. I hope RAM to Swap ratio doesn't effect
performance (I've read somewhere that SWAP should be twice the amount
of RAM, I don't remember where)

  /dev/PORTAGE /mnt/portage reiserfs noatime,nodev,nosuid,noexec,notail 0 2

This partition will hold the portage tree (lots of small sized files) so
again ReiserFS, again the fragmentation issue.. Pointers?

  /dev/SRC /mnt/src XXX noatime,nodev,nosuid,noexec,xxx 0 2

This partition will hold the downloaded source code of packages.. I've
not made any decision as to which FS to use.. This partition will hold
files of variable size (100K - 200MB). Which file system to use? And
what options to pass?

  /dev/MUSIC /mnt/music XXX noatime,nodev,nosuid,noexec,xxx 0 2

As name suggest it'll hold all my MP3's/OGG's.. File size averages
around 3-5 MB.. File system and options to use.. I'm thinking bout
ReiserFS.. Am I right?

  /dev/VIDEO /mnt/video xfs noatime,nodev,nosuid,noexec,xxx 0 2

File size of videos varies form 50 - 800 MB.. XFS, as I've read offers
great performance when dealing with large files.. What options to pass to
get max performance?

  /dev/OTHER /mnt/other XXX noatime,nodev,nosuid,noexec,xxx 0 2

This partition will hold e-books (size: 1 - 100 MB), pictures ( < 1 MB)
and some other stuff ( all less than < 5 MB).. File system and options?

  /dev/HOME /home reiserfs noatime,nodev,nosuid,notail 0 2

This is the /home partition, again small files but also e-mails stored
in mbox format.. File size will vary from extremely small to unknown
(courtesy mbox).. Is ReiserFS good for this or should I choose ext3?

  /dev/OPT /opt XXX noatime,nodev,xxx 0 2

This partition holds, as you all know java, and many of my games (DOOM3,
QUAKE4 at present).. The games have large *.PK4 files.. What FS and
options to choose?

  /dev/TMP /tmp ext2 noatime,nodev,nosuid,noexec 0 2

For /tmp partition I think I'll stick with ext2.. Any suggestions?

  /dev/USR /usr reiserfs noatime,nodev,notail 0 2

Variable file size (no idea how much they vary).. ext3 or reiserfs?

  /dev/VAR /var reiserfs noatime,nodev,nosuid,noexec,notail 0 2

Again same dillemma as that of /usr.. I guess it'll hold many small
files (courtesy portage), also some mid sized files (courtesy logs)..
Mail is not a problem here as no mail is stored in this partition..

	At present all my partitions have ext3 as their FS (except /boot
and /tmp).. This is how I passed the mke2fs command:

  mke2fs -j -m 1 -O dir_index,filetype,sparse_super /dev/***

What options should I pass to get the max performance in ex3 (other than
the above written), ReiserFS, XFS?

Thanks in Advance and sorry for such a long post,
Farhan Ahmed

-- 
Place		:  Bangalore, Karnataka, India
GPG Key		:  8BE90E98
WengoPhone ID	:  farhanahmed
IRC Nick	:  farhanahmed / farhanahmed06 (irc.freenode.net)