Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 23rd Feb 2009 10:23 UTC
The next generation of the extended file system; ext4, provides improved scalability, reliability, and considerable new functionality. This article covers ext4 Functionality, scalability, and performance. It's an easy read to get to know the latest and greatest Linux file system.
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Member since:
2005-07-24
I'm pleased with what ext4 is. It was never expected to be btrfs. It was expected to be a last evolution of the mature and rock solid stable ext series of Linux filesystems. The new features add to its solidity, make it even more fragmentation resistant, and ward off some impending "barriers". Like one commenter has mentioned, 8TB and 16TB limits are about to get embarrassing.
If nothing else, the fast fsck will be a noticeable benefit to desktop users. I just did an fsck on a 500GB ext4 filesystem which was over half full, and which contained about 3 million files. 2 minutes and 47 seconds. I didn't do a side by side comparison. But I know from experience that ext3 would have taken a *lot* longer. A nice improvement considering that most of the "choice is good" Linux distro maintainers don't see fit to give desktop users a choice to break out of the automatic forced fsck's that occur by both mount count and time interval. I know I've sat through way too many, having forgotten to tune2fs away the silly mount count trigger.
Edited 2009-02-25 05:01 UTC