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Old 05-29-2008, 09:09 PM   #1
mg92865
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Best file system for home server??


For a small network home server, using samba, what type of file system for a newbie? Transfer speed and ease of backup seem important. I have learned to backup and restore with partimage.

In looking over postings, it seems that using an entire 300 gb hard drive in the server as Fat32 is not a good idea. Others have suggested NFS, XFS, NTFS, JFS, ext3, perhaps others.

The network has one windows desktop, one laptop on occasion, one ubuntu desktop and the ubuntu server. Any suggestions on a choice, suggested readings, or points I should consider as I work on the decision myself?


Thank you,

mg92865
 
Old 05-29-2008, 09:24 PM   #2
billymayday
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I don't see why you'd want any FAT32 - it has file size limitations for a start. With Samba, Windows won't care either.

Your starting point will probably be what systems Ubuntu server supports out of the box, and rule out those it doesn't.

For a home server, I doubt you will notice any difference between file systems in any case. I'd probably go with the Ubuntu standard to be honest. Is that ext3?
 
Old 05-29-2008, 09:42 PM   #3
i92guboj
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mg92865 View Post
For a small network home server, using samba, what type of file system for a newbie? Transfer speed and ease of backup seem important. I have learned to backup and restore with partimage.

In looking over postings, it seems that using an entire 300 gb hard drive in the server as Fat32 is not a good idea.
It isn't, indeed.

Quote:
Others have suggested NFS, XFS, NTFS, JFS, ext3, perhaps others.
nfs is a network filesystem, just like samba. It doesn't really have anything to do with the underlying physical system.

xfs is very good at big files, but it's very bad at handling data corruption. I usually only advice it if you own an interrupted power supply.

ntfs is not a good filesystem for me. Any linux fs is superior.

jfs is fine if your server will be requiring lots of cpu power, because it's probably the lightest fs in which regards cpu usage.

ext3 is the most secure, probably, and the recovery tools and how-tos are abundant, so if you care about your data, you should pick this.

There are lots of flamewars around about my-filesystem vs. your-filesystem, so I will not suggest any links nor anything. I just resumed my knowledge, for the rest, just google around :P
 
Old 05-29-2008, 10:24 PM   #4
onebuck
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Hi,

I would add that ext3 would be the choice as to the support and longevity for a filesystem. You will find that a journaled system will be a plus when you need to recover.

I don't want to get into a pissing contest about file systems. But for typical loads then ext3 would be my choice. The plus side is that ext3 will be supported.
 
Old 05-29-2008, 11:15 PM   #5
i92guboj
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Originally Posted by onebuck View Post
Hi,

I would add that ext3 would be the choice as to the support and longevity for a filesystem. You will find that a journaled system will be a plus when you need to recover.
About that, I will also add that you can painlessly migrate to newer versions. You can mount any ext2 fs as ext3 and start using it. You can also mount any ext3 fs as ext4 (still under development) and start using it. Of course, once you use any ext4 specific feature the filesystem will no longer be mountable as ext3, but this makes the upgrade to newer versions of the filesystem completely transparent.
 
  


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