Trying Out Linux File-Systems With The 4.2 Kernel On A USB Flash Drive

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Trying Out Linux File-Systems With The 4.2 Kernel On A USB Flash Drive

It's been a while since last benchmarking any Linux file-systems on a USB 3.0 flash drive to see how the performance compares, given that F2FS and friends are being optimized for flash storage. However, off the Linux 4.2 kernel for kicks I've run some benchmarks on a 16GB USB flash drive the EXT4, Btrfs, XFS, and F2FS file-systems.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=22000

[duby229]

Phoronix: Trying Out Linux File-Systems With The 4.2 Kernel On A USB Flash Drive

It's been a while since last benchmarking any Linux file-systems on a USB 3.0 flash drive to see how the performance compares, given that F2FS and friends are being optimized for flash storage. However, off the Linux 4.2 kernel for kicks I've run some benchmarks on a 16GB USB flash drive the EXT4, Btrfs, XFS, and F2FS file-systems.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=22000

ext2 is really better filesystem for flash drives. The journal can hurt performance on drives where there is no write cache..

[macemoneta]

I generally use btrfs on flash drives; I want to know if data gets corrupted. Lately, with the price of flash dropping dramatically, I've been buying larger flash drives and configuring two partitions, arranged as a btrfs RAID1. That way, not only do I get corruption detection, but also automatic correction.

[schmidtbag]

I generally use btrfs on flash drives; I want to know if data gets corrupted. Lately, with the price of flash dropping dramatically, I've been buying larger flash drives and configuring two partitions, arranged as a btrfs RAID1. That way, not only do I get corruption detection, but also automatic correction.

Seeing as flash drives are intended to be portable, doing that drastically decreases the portability of them. If you're going to lower the portability, might as well make the most of it and go for something like an eSATA HDD or SSD. But, I can't be too quick to judge - maybe you have a good reason for doing this.

[macemoneta]

Seeing as flash drives are intended to be portable, doing that drastically decreases the portability of them. If you're going to lower the portability, might as well make the most of it and go for something like an eSATA HDD or SSD. But, I can't be too quick to judge - maybe you have a good reason for doing this.

All my systems run Linux and can mount btrfs, obviously. Portability between OS is not a consideration for me.

[wizard69]

It is interesting that EXT4 still holds up well.

[Veto]

I generally use btrfs on flash drives; I want to know if data gets corrupted. Lately, with the price of flash dropping dramatically, I've been buying larger flash drives and configuring two partitions, arranged as a btrfs RAID1. That way, not only do I get corruption detection, but also automatic correction.

So have you had any benefit from that yet? (Besides abysmal flash performance)
My own experience with USB flash drives are more of the "works or fails completely" type. Your method doesn't really solve that anyway...

[Azrael5]

Generally f2fs on usb appears to be the best file system in this test. To make installation more simple user should decide file system in the main installation phase.

[Mike Frett]

All my systems run Linux and can mount btrfs, obviously. Portability between OS is not a consideration for me.

Some people don't realize that some of us only use Linux. haha

[caligula]

Huh.. yet another usb flash drive test and no fat/exfat comparison even though 99% of people on Earth (probably also > 90% of Linux users) use fat/exfat on USB media.