Linux Folding - ext3 v. ext4: New Data

It has been well documented that there are long, sometimes 30+ minute pauses between folding complete and when WUs are uploaded when using ext4. I believe that this may be true primarily for users of traditional disks rather than solid state disks.

Here are a few data points that seem consistent after a skim of 5 SSD + ext4 systems.


SR-2 system: Completed 250000 out of 250000 steps (100%) [05:19:27] DynamicWrapper: Finished Work Unit: sleep=10000 [05:19:37] Writing 100233324 bytes of core data to disk... [05:19:40] ... Done. [05:20:03] - Shutting down core

Core i7-2600K: [20:39:51] Completed 250000 out of 250000 steps (100%) [20:40:01] DynamicWrapper: Finished Work Unit: sleep=10000 [20:40:11] [20:40:11] Finished Work Unit: [20:40:11] [20:40:12] - Writing 95750318 bytes of core data to disk... [20:40:12] ... Done. [20:40:19] - Shutting down core

Dual Opteron 6164 HE: Completed 250000 out of 250000 steps (100%) [10:48:27] DynamicWrapper: Finished Work Unit: sleep=10000 [10:48:37] Leaving Run [10:48:41] - Writing 95826310 bytes of core data to disk... [10:48:42] ... Done. [10:49:08] - Shutting down core [10:49:08]

Xeon E3-1230: [22:49:40] Completed 250000 out of 250000 steps (100%) [22:49:57] Finished Work Unit: [22:49:59] - Writing 100102883 bytes of core data to disk... [22:50:00] ... Done. [22:50:17] - Shutting down core

All Ubuntu 10.10 Desktop with ext4. The i7-2600K used a Corsair P3-128 and the other three used Sandforce SF-1200 based drives.

Since $100 or less buys a 40-64GB Gen2 SSD, I thought people would like to know. Also, as Gen3 drives become more available, used Gen2 drives should become less expensive second hand.

Good to know..if you have an ssd you are installing on, you don't need to screw with partitioning.

is there any reason to switch?

Not that I can see. If you already have Ubuntu installed on ext3, leave it.

Yea the real thing is that it makes installation super easy since you can just click next.

so, let me see if I understand the conclusion here:

the alleged ext4 slowdown, if it exists, only exists for HDD users, not SSD users.

right?

jebo_4jc said:

the alleged ext4 slowdown, if it exists, only exists for HDD users, not SSD users.

Click to expand...

Yes and it's not alleged, it has been confirmed countless times over the past couple of years and it isn't limited to ext4 as I have been able to replicate it on ReiserFS, XFS, and JFS.