filesystem for storage?

qrange · 09-13-2011, 10:56 PM

I've tried ext4 but it (with journaling) takes a lot of hard disk space even just for filesystem.
Is there a more efficient (but commonly used) filesystem suited for archiving large files?
(using large hdd instead of dvds)

If I turn off journaling, how much space would be restored?

thanks.

anomie · 09-14-2011, 04:50 PM

You can view the current journal size using dumpe2fs(8). Turning off journaling should allow you to reclaim that amount. Probably not a whole lot.

Note also that you can manipulate the number of reserved blocks using tune2fs(8). That can give you back ~5%, assuming you accepted the defaults at creation time.

What type of storage? Is it accessed by only one host?

qrange · 09-15-2011, 01:20 AM

I see, well 5% is a lot for large partitions.
yes, just one host. I installed large hdd in it.
using Debian and WindowsXP. (windows can mount ext4 as readonly, it would be nice if new filesystem had that option too)

jefro · 09-15-2011, 03:53 PM

ZFS would be nice.

anomie · 09-15-2011, 10:24 PM

Not to go too far OT, but you can use ZFS on FreeBSD.