With Linux 2.6.32, Btrfs Gains As EXT4 Recedes

[jbrown96]

It's disappointing to see how Ext4 seems to be going backwards. I know that the mount options make a huge difference with ext4, but I haven't really been able to follow them very well. My computer is a laptop, so it has a UPS (the battery) built in. Does anyone know some mount options that would improve performance. I'm not worried about data integrity since I have a battery.

[Garp]

I was/am suspicious of the Ext3 results - especially since when I moved from ext3 -> ext4 I found a huge performance boost in booting as did most others.

Sure, but what kernel version are you using? Phoronix have already pointed out very recently that there is a serious ext4 performance regression in the latest kernel (2.6.32) compared to previous releases.

[Zapitron]

It'd be cool to see JFS included in filesystem benchmarks.

[Svartalf]

On a separate note, does anyone know what the advantages of using zlib compression on btrfs are?

It would be on an embedded system, more than anything else. That way you can actually use less flash memory (which is still a slight concern even now...). For anything else, it's not as useful as people think it might be.

[jakubo]

im a bit confused. maybe one could shortly summarize which hardware would suit a given FS best as it seems solid state disks have some technical benefits that maybe the filesystem should be maybe aware of.
or maybe one could explain which test for which situation in usage stands for. (i.e. booting, handling large files, or any special situation a filesystem would be best suited)
maybe that would be worth an article...?



im quite impressed by ext3, and like someone before im even more wondering how the performance boost might have come, however surely its caused by not using the latest kernel. which means... to put it in terms of the help text for staging drivers in kernel config: could ext4 kick my dog when i wasnt paying attention, when i had one? (or: is it all that risky like it seems to me now?)

[pmorph]

Wow! Ext3 looks magical in this benchmark. Wonder if its indeed due to smoke and mirrors?
It can hardly be the case that everything else has regressed..

[Michael]

As you will see later this week, EXT4 is regressing even harder in 2.6.33.

[misiu_mp]

If the ext3 configuration used in the test was indeed not equivalent to the configuration of ext4 and btrfs then the results are _really_ interesting for btrfs. If its performance will not regress, it will beat the other filesystems hands on, based on the functionality. It doesnt look like ext4 will live long.

[bugmenot]

Is this Reiser4?

How do the filesystems compare on a normal harddisc? For 99% of all users the SSD performance is irrelevant ATM.

[jafox]

On a separate note, does anyone know what the advantages of using zlib compression on btrfs are?

Imagine you have an external array. The link to the array is about ~120MB/s (1 gigabit). The data you write to the array is not compressed. Your maximum write speed will be something less than the link speed.

zlib compression allows you to write more across a link per second. Its actually a speed optimization. Now you are writing 120MB/s of compressed data across the link.

Assuming the cpu load is negligible in your case, zlib compression can help with bandwidth throttled workloads.

This is the driver behind compression under ZFS as well.