Ext3 and Reiserfs

d00msweek · 12-31-2004, 09:00 AM

Hey, is there someway to "convert" my ext3 filesystem to reiserfs without deleting the files in the ext3 filesystem ?

michaelk · 12-31-2004, 09:04 AM

Not that I know of.

kostian · 12-31-2004, 09:58 AM

well there is... kinda...
heres the translation of the message Yury Umanets aka Banshee(one of namesys programers) posted at
http://www.linux.org.ru/view-message...anonymous=hide

Quote:

There is a way of in-place conversion of any fs to another invented by Mr. Tzukanov. It is called convertfs. google it for details. In two words: lets say we have an ext3 fs (1) we create a big file on it (of the size of fs) which consists of holes. (2) create reiserfs on it (3) mount it via loopback (4) move all the files from an original fs to fs on loop (5) when its done, the original fs consists of one big reiserfs image and now we have to remap all the blocks from the image file to the device. It is done by a small prog from the convertfs tools or you can write one yourself.

http://tzukanov.narod.ru/convertfs/
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.p...421cf2b2a1c8ee

of course you do understand how dangerous this is and backups is a MUST and since you have the backup anyway it would be much easier just mkreiserfs and copy back the data.

J.W. · 12-31-2004, 12:08 PM

I would agree with kostian in suggesting simply copying the data to a CD or whatever, converting the file system, and then copying the data back. -- J.W.

major.tom · 12-31-2004, 12:36 PM

It's probably easier to do if you have a spare hard drive. I feel much safer doing it this way than using an all-or-nothing approach. I'm not saying that convertfs doesn't work or even that it's buggy -- just that I feel more comfortable copying the data to a new drive, booting from that, letting it run a few days to see how things are working out, then retiring the old drive.

I used the following guide (http://www.losurs.org/docs/LDP/HOWTO...ade/index.html) to do my filesystem change, with slight variations (I partitioned the new drive a bit differently than the old one). I can provide the details, if desired.

I've now been running ReiserFS for several days without problems. It does seem a bit quicker than ext3.

Garry