Good file system that recovers from a power failure.
 

Hi,

I'm planning to build a rig like mine for my brother before to long. I
know there are lots of opinions on the net but want some personal
experience information on this. My brother does not have a UPS. I may
can talk him into getting one but not sure. What is a good file system
that recovers well from a improper shutdown? I use ext2, ext3 and
reiserfs here but never had a power problem, except when hal broke my
stuff. I know XFS is not good for this already from my own personal
experience.


Does anyone here have any personal experience on this? Just a 'I use
this and had a power failure and it powered up fine with no data loss'
would be nice. If this happened a lot and still worked, that would be
even better.


I'm not looking to start a turf war. This will be a plain old desktop
so it doesn't need a fancy file system, just one that recovers from a
power failure.


Thanks.

Dale

:-) :-)

Good file system that recovers from a power failure.
 

Hi,

If you don't use a UPS, what you want is journaling file system that is
configured to do a lot of syncing. However, the syncing will make
writing really slow.

Ext4 has the latest features. Especially, if you want to use an SSD.

To really be reliable you must use a UPS which can signal when a clean
shutdown is needed. Not having one is just asking for grief. With this
functionality, you will not need the excessive syncing and writing can
be fast.

Additionally, if you don't have the cleanest power, having a UPS will
extend the life of the hard drive and potentially the rest of the system
as well as eliminating apparently random data corruption.

I very much like the CyberPower Intelligent LCD Series. It has a USB
connection which works with sys-power/nut and an LCD display.

-Arthur

On Fri, 2010-12-31 at 14:12 -0600, Dale wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm planning to build a rig like mine for my brother before to long. I
> know there are lots of opinions on the net but want some personal
> experience information on this. My brother does not have a UPS. I may
> can talk him into getting one but not sure. What is a good file system
> that recovers well from a improper shutdown? I use ext2, ext3 and
> reiserfs here but never had a power problem, except when hal broke my
> stuff. I know XFS is not good for this already from my own personal
> experience.
>
> Does anyone here have any personal experience on this? Just a 'I use
> this and had a power failure and it powered up fine with no data loss'
> would be nice. If this happened a lot and still worked, that would be
> even better.
>
> I'm not looking to start a turf war. This will be a plain old desktop
> so it doesn't need a fancy file system, just one that recovers from a
> power failure.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Dale
>
> :-) :-)

Good file system that recovers from a power failure.
 

Apparently, though unproven, at 22:12 on Friday 31 December 2010, Dale did
opine thusly:

> Hi,
>
> I'm planning to build a rig like mine for my brother before to long. I
> know there are lots of opinions on the net but want some personal
> experience information on this. My brother does not have a UPS. I may
> can talk him into getting one but not sure. What is a good file system
> that recovers well from a improper shutdown? I use ext2, ext3 and
> reiserfs here but never had a power problem, except when hal broke my
> stuff. I know XFS is not good for this already from my own personal
> experience.
>
> Does anyone here have any personal experience on this? Just a 'I use
> this and had a power failure and it powered up fine with no data loss'
> would be nice. If this happened a lot and still worked, that would be
> even better.
>
> I'm not looking to start a turf war. This will be a plain old desktop
> so it doesn't need a fancy file system, just one that recovers from a
> power failure.

Down here we have Africa power.
Africa power makes post-Katrina power look tame.

Total corruptions in 5 years with reiserfs-3.6 and NO ups in that environment
= zero.

I can't fairly comment on ext[234] as I don't have the same length of
experience with them. From what other commentators have said elsewhere it
looks like with optimum settings and tweaks they can be just as good as I got
from reiser, but that's just hearsay from me.

My gut feel on this is that any modern fs will be built to be able to tolerate
blackouts - it's almost a requirement these days. So it's likely a 6 and half-
dozen question in reality. Except XFS as you know, but that's a special case
(aggressive caching virtually requires a UPS or guaranteed no-downtime power)

--
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Good file system that recovers from a power failure.
 

Arthur Britto wrote:

Hi,

If you don't use a UPS, what you want is journaling file system that is
configured to do a lot of syncing. However, the syncing will make
writing really slow.

Ext4 has the latest features. Especially, if you want to use an SSD.

To really be reliable you must use a UPS which can signal when a clean
shutdown is needed. Not having one is just asking for grief. With this
functionality, you will not need the excessive syncing and writing can
be fast.

Additionally, if you don't have the cleanest power, having a UPS will
extend the life of the hard drive and potentially the rest of the system
as well as eliminating apparently random data corruption.

I very much like the CyberPower Intelligent LCD Series. It has a USB
connection which works with sys-power/nut and an LCD display.

-Arthur




I was thinking a journaling file system would be best. I was even
curious about ext4. I have not used ext4 yet but giving ot some
thought. May try that on my brothers and see how it does.


He is currently using windoze XP. I can't count the number of times the
power has went off. I been telling him for years that he is just plain
asking for it. He is one of those, if it works, don't change anything
to make it better types. So, when something blows up, he will have a
healthy dose of regret and 20/20 hindsight too.


I have a older CyberPower 1250AVR myself and it works OK. I have yet to
get nut configured properly tho. I installed the same version and
copied the config files from my old rig over, it just fills up messages
with errors and such. That may be another thread one day. I like the
CyberPower UPS's too. I put in new batteries a couple years ago for mine.


We live on the end of the line so we do have spikes, surges and all
that. I checked on the internals of my UPS and it has a healthy set of
MOV's in there. I was glad to see that. I think that is one reason my
old rig has lasted so long.


Thanks for the info.

Dale

:-) :-)

Good file system that recovers from a power failure.
 

Alan McKinnon wrote:

Apparently, though unproven, at 22:12 on Friday 31 December 2010, Dale did
opine thusly:



Hi,

I'm planning to build a rig like mine for my brother before to long. I
know there are lots of opinions on the net but want some personal
experience information on this. My brother does not have a UPS. I may
can talk him into getting one but not sure. What is a good file system
that recovers well from a improper shutdown? I use ext2, ext3 and
reiserfs here but never had a power problem, except when hal broke my
stuff. I know XFS is not good for this already from my own personal
experience.

Does anyone here have any personal experience on this? Just a 'I use
this and had a power failure and it powered up fine with no data loss'
would be nice. If this happened a lot and still worked, that would be
even better.

I'm not looking to start a turf war. This will be a plain old desktop
so it doesn't need a fancy file system, just one that recovers from a
power failure.


Down here we have Africa power.
Africa power makes post-Katrina power look tame.

Total corruptions in 5 years with reiserfs-3.6 and NO ups in that environment
= zero.

I can't fairly comment on ext[234] as I don't have the same length of
experience with them. From what other commentators have said elsewhere it
looks like with optimum settings and tweaks they can be just as good as I got
from reiser, but that's just hearsay from me.

My gut feel on this is that any modern fs will be built to be able to tolerate
blackouts - it's almost a requirement these days. So it's likely a 6 and half-
dozen question in reality. Except XFS as you know, but that's a special case
(aggressive caching virtually requires a UPS or guaranteed no-downtime power)




I have /boot on ext2. Portage is on ext3. I have reiserfs on
everything else. I did have the hal problem and a power supply fan that
died and I had to pull the plug. All the file systems I use recovered
nicely after those problems. I didn't lose anything that I know of.


Is reiserfs being maintained anymore? I have read where some say it is
not but I have also read they are working on version 4 and it is being
maintained. Not sure what to believe on this one.


Thanks.

Dale

:-) :-)

Good file system that recovers from a power failure.
 

On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 at 12:12 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm planning to build a rig like mine for my brother before to long. *I know
> there are lots of opinions on the net but want some personal experience
> information on this. *My brother does not have a UPS. *I may can talk him
> into getting one but not sure. *What is a good file system that recovers
> well from a improper shutdown? *I use ext2, ext3 and reiserfs here but never
> had a power problem, except when hal broke my stuff. *I know XFS is not good
> for this already from my own personal experience.
>
> Does anyone here have any personal experience on this? *Just a 'I use this
> and had a power failure and it powered up fine with no data loss' would be
> nice. * If this happened a lot and still worked, that would be even better.
>
> I'm not looking to start a turf war. *This will be a plain old desktop so it
> doesn't need a fancy file system, just one that recovers from a power
> failure.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Dale
>
> :-) *:-)
>
>

Nothing much to say that others haven't said. I'm trying ext4 for the
first time starting today.

I ran across this page yesterday that might be of interest. I don't
see anything specific to your question but maybe you will.

Cheers,
Mark

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_system_comparison

Good file system that recovers from a power failure.
 

Apparently, though unproven, at 23:22 on Friday 31 December 2010, Dale did
opine thusly:

> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > Apparently, though unproven, at 22:12 on Friday 31 December 2010, Dale
> > did
> >
> > opine thusly:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I'm planning to build a rig like mine for my brother before to long. I
> >> know there are lots of opinions on the net but want some personal
> >> experience information on this. My brother does not have a UPS. I may
> >> can talk him into getting one but not sure. What is a good file system
> >> that recovers well from a improper shutdown? I use ext2, ext3 and
> >> reiserfs here but never had a power problem, except when hal broke my
> >> stuff. I know XFS is not good for this already from my own personal
> >> experience.
> >>
> >> Does anyone here have any personal experience on this? Just a 'I use
> >> this and had a power failure and it powered up fine with no data loss'
> >> would be nice. If this happened a lot and still worked, that would be
> >> even better.
> >>
> >> I'm not looking to start a turf war. This will be a plain old desktop
> >> so it doesn't need a fancy file system, just one that recovers from a
> >> power failure.
> >
> > Down here we have Africa power.
> > Africa power makes post-Katrina power look tame.
> >
> > Total corruptions in 5 years with reiserfs-3.6 and NO ups in that
> > environment = zero.
> >
> > I can't fairly comment on ext[234] as I don't have the same length of
> > experience with them. From what other commentators have said elsewhere it
> > looks like with optimum settings and tweaks they can be just as good as I
> > got from reiser, but that's just hearsay from me.
> >
> > My gut feel on this is that any modern fs will be built to be able to
> > tolerate blackouts - it's almost a requirement these days. So it's
> > likely a 6 and half- dozen question in reality. Except XFS as you know,
> > but that's a special case (aggressive caching virtually requires a UPS
> > or guaranteed no-downtime power)
>
> I have /boot on ext2. Portage is on ext3. I have reiserfs on
> everything else. I did have the hal problem and a power supply fan that
> died and I had to pull the plug. All the file systems I use recovered
> nicely after those problems. I didn't lose anything that I know of.
>
> Is reiserfs being maintained anymore? I have read where some say it is
> not but I have also read they are working on version 4 and it is being
> maintained. Not sure what to believe on this one.

When was the last time portage offered you a reiser update?

The reiser4progs ebuild has 13 Changelog entries in 2.5 years, 8 of them are
stabilisation toe various arches. Current version is 1.0.7 and has been there
for 23 months.

reiserfsprogs is similar, on 3.6.21 for 23 months and one update (not a
stabilisation) since Aug 2007

reiser4 is not in the mainline kernel, and highly unlikely to ever be there
according to the last thing I heard Linus say on the matter. Yes, it's in Zen
IIRC, but Zen is not mainline. And reiser4 will probably never have a real
fsck either (technical restriction - it's plugins that do the work and fsck
cannot know what the plugins did)

Hans *was* reiserfs for all practical purposes. SuSE funded most of Reiserfs
in the early days and they have switched away from it for logistic reasons.

Does any of that sound to you like "actively maintained"?

It's my opinion that reiser is in security-fix-only mode from whoever is
maintaining it. If everything else around it stays the same, the fs will
obviously continue working just as it always did. But the surrounding system
is not stable, it changes rapidly, especially in kernel space, so the odds are
stacked against reiser for bitrot. For all these reasons, I regretfully
switched my own systems over to ext4 some time ago. Rieser was a good fs whose
time has come and gone and I no longer had warm and fuzzies about the future
with it.




--
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Good file system that recovers from a power failure.
 

reiser4 is fully atomic. A transactions happens completely or it doesn't.

Unlike ext4 or btrfs or xfs.

reiser4 also uses barriers (the others use them too, but), when barriers are
not available for some reason or another, it complains in dmesg and goes into
sync mode.

This combined makes it pretty robust against power failures. You won't get the
good old xfs/ext4/btrfs problem that a rename can end with two useless empty
files.

Good file system that recovers from a power failure.
 

Alan McKinnon wrote:


When was the last time portage offered you a reiser update?

The reiser4progs ebuild has 13 Changelog entries in 2.5 years, 8 of them are
stabilisation toe various arches. Current version is 1.0.7 and has been there
for 23 months.

reiserfsprogs is similar, on 3.6.21 for 23 months and one update (not a
stabilisation) since Aug 2007

reiser4 is not in the mainline kernel, and highly unlikely to ever be there
according to the last thing I heard Linus say on the matter. Yes, it's in Zen
IIRC, but Zen is not mainline. And reiser4 will probably never have a real
fsck either (technical restriction - it's plugins that do the work and fsck
cannot know what the plugins did)

Hans *was* reiserfs for all practical purposes. SuSE funded most of Reiserfs
in the early days and they have switched away from it for logistic reasons.

Does any of that sound to you like "actively maintained"?

It's my opinion that reiser is in security-fix-only mode from whoever is
maintaining it. If everything else around it stays the same, the fs will
obviously continue working just as it always did. But the surrounding system
is not stable, it changes rapidly, especially in kernel space, so the odds are
stacked against reiser for bitrot. For all these reasons, I regretfully
switched my own systems over to ext4 some time ago. Rieser was a good fs whose
time has come and gone and I no longer had warm and fuzzies about the future
with it.




I'm not sure I EVER saw a update to reiserfs. I was hoping it was just
that good. lol


This is also the reason I was considering moving to ext4 or something.
How has ext4 been treating you since the switch? I also assume you have
UPSs as well?


Dale

:-) :-)

Good file system that recovers from a power failure.
 

Apparently, though unproven, at 00:27 on Saturday 01 January 2011, Dale did
opine thusly:


> > It's my opinion that reiser is in security-fix-only mode from whoever is
> > maintaining it. If everything else around it stays the same, the fs will
> > obviously continue working just as it always did. But the surrounding
> > system is not stable, it changes rapidly, especially in kernel space, so
> > the odds are stacked against reiser for bitrot. For all these reasons, I
> > regretfully switched my own systems over to ext4 some time ago. Rieser
> > was a good fs whose time has come and gone and I no longer had warm and
> > fuzzies about the future with it.
>
> I'm not sure I EVER saw a update to reiserfs. I was hoping it was just
> that good. lol
>
> This is also the reason I was considering moving to ext4 or something.
> How has ext4 been treating you since the switch? I also assume you have
> UPSs as well?

It's still early days, but ext4 has been good here on all machines. I don't
have a UPS (couldn't be bothered really...) so the UPS is the device's
battery. Which means me doing something really stupid and locking the machine
up is the most common reason for hard reboots. It survived every time so far.

--
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com