quick question about ext2 vs ext3
 

I know ext3's journal makes it significantly faster in case of a crash, but does it actually prevent data corruption in cases where ext2 wouldn't? I've been using ext3 for a while and crash so infrequently I could stand a long fsck once in a blue moon in exchange for day to day speed (ext2 is roughly 4x faster from the benchmarks I've seen). The only compelling reason for me to keep ext3 would be if someone could tell me that it actually can recover data in some instances where ext2 couldn't.

cheers,
DS

i'm no expert, but you should be fine with ext2. you might wanna check out reiserfs if you want speed but still want journaling.

ReiserFS is an extremely fast journalling filesystem, you might want to check it out. Works better than both ext2 and ext3 in my opinion

if I do end up going with a journaling FS I'll probably checkout out Reiser but I wish I knew whether I could get away with ext2, which would be ideal. Does anyone know for certain about the data-loss issue?

First off, reiser is a much faster file system and also makes better use of disk space. Where as ext2/3 store data in 1 2 4 or 8k blocks. You can not store more than 1 file in a logical block. Reiser allows more than 1 file to reside in a block by creating each file as an "item".

Now as for journalling, resiser only journals the metadata. Thats the data that know what has been changed. Ext3 journals the metadata as well as the actual data. Thus it is far better at recovering from major crashes. What are the odds of a major crash? slim to none. So I would definately go with a file system that does not have to spend so much time writing 2 types of journals.

You really should go to namesys.com and they will explain resier to you. You will absolutely be sold on it. If you are using a high end server, then you may want to look into jfs and xfs also. However if you are using that product with the red colored hat, then don't even bother with xfs. Stick with ext3 or reiser.

"However if you are using that product with the red colored hat, then don't even bother with xfs. Stick with ext3 or reiser."

Any particular reason you are saying this ?
I have been looking at Reiser as well as XFS. Anything about XFS that I should know ?

I don't know which benchmarks these were, but there are only a couple of things that ext3 does slower than ext2 and generally they are very similar in speed overall. They are essentially the same filesystem except ext3 has a journal, so there is no reason not to use ext3, esp since ext3 has the journal and recovers better from unexpected power downs and such - which I get a lot of here.

Reiser is also good even if Hans is a pain at times :) I'm quite sure he want the world to be all using reiser4 in the near future :) The only problem I've had with reiser is that it tends to store lots of small files as a big file, so there are times you can possibly lose more files when you lose a disk cluster... But generally these days disks go bad with a bang anyway and you lose the lot... We all agree reiser is all round the top performer at the moment, but performance isn't the only criteria for everyone.

I went back to ext3 from reiser mainly for compatibility as at the time few bootable rescue floppies had reiser support, but they did have ext2 which is enough to get files off an ext3 disk... I also just feel ext3 is a proven workhorse while reiser was going through a lot of change a couple of years ago. Once you shift you tend to stick with what works for you.