Peter Grandi wrote:
However, if you move to smaller files ReiserFS seems better, if you keep mbox JFS is nicer, and if the mboxes are largish perhaps XFS is better.
Testing might be the best option. This Intel authored pdf (slightly dated) suggests XFS may be the best choice for maildir based storage and ext3 for mbox.
http://www.valhenson.org/review/choosing.pdf
bmesich> I was under the assumption that batteries on the bmesich> controllers are a must when using write-caching bmesich> sensibly. Well, yes and no. In general the Linux cache is enough for caching and the disk cache is enough for buffering. The host adapter cache is most useful for RAID5, as a stripe buffer: to keep in memory writes that do not cover a full stripe hoping that sooner or later the rest of the stripe will be written and thus a RMW cycle will be avoided. In your case that may be a vain hope.
If using XFS, keeping the battery backed controller would be sensible - see the "Write Back Cache" section of the FAQ at SGI:
http://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/faq.html#wcache
However IBM have stopped actively developing JFS, much as SGI have stopped actively developing XFS, and RedHat have stopped actively developing 'ext3'. The main difference is in reactiveness to bug fixing: for JFS it is up to the general kernel development community, while for ReiserFS, XFS and 'ext3' there is a sponsor who cares (somewhat) about that.
Although SGI may have "stopped actively developing XFS", in the sense that SGI has EOL'ed IRIX, SGI staff are actively adding new features and fixing bugs to the Linux implementation. See
http://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/ and an active mailing list: http://marc.info/?l=linux-xfs Regards, Richard -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
