[SOLVED] Is ext4 faster than ext3 on 2008 hardware?

android-eve · 12-31-2010, 07:49 AM

The ext4 features are well listed in the Ext4 Howto.

Most of these features seem to be aimed at newer systems, having petabytes disk drives and handling huge files -- neither of which applies to my system.

Can a modest 3 year old system, having only two 500GB HDDs, used mostly for Android development using Eclipse (64-bit), benefit from choosing ext4 over ext3?

AlucardZero · 12-31-2010, 08:30 AM

Yes, fscking in ext4 is 6-8 times faster than ext3, regardless of hardware.

snowpine · 12-31-2010, 08:41 AM

ext4 is now the default filesystem for Ubuntu (and most other distros), so unless you have a pressing need for a different filesystem, I suggest trusting the Ubuntu developers and choosing the default.

Anecdotally, I notice an improvement on my crappy netbook and even on my ancient pentium 3 laptop.

android-eve · 12-31-2010, 09:15 AM

Thank you. You have just convinced me to install GRUB2 on a dual-boot 8.04+10.4 system, instead of re-installing 10.04 on ext3.

mostlyharmless · 12-31-2010, 09:56 AM

If you're dual booting and want to access your ubuntu partition from Windows, you probably need to use ext3. Just a thought! I'm not sure 8.04 can read ext4 either.