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Best filesystem?

N

NerdzRule7

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 3, 2002
Messages
244
alright guys, heres the deal. i've recently seen my storage needs increase and increase. raid 5 is just too expensive, so single drives are my best solution as of now, i just have to hope the drive doesnt fail, or the filesystem gets corrupt. my question is what filesystem has the best stability, recoverability, and mobility? i've chosen fat32 for my DAS drives, because i can write to them in both linux and windows, they are relitively stable, and theres lots of software out there to fix them up if anything goes wrong. is fat32 the right choice? i need something that is writable in windows and linux, and if need be, could be moved to another working computer with either os, so the files could be acessable quickly. i wasnt sure if fat32 is my best solution, or if i'm missing something, or if you have a sugestion, what do you think is the best way for me to get a cheap 1TB of safe storage if not single drives. thanks-The_nerd
 
I installed the latest SUSE on a machine at work and it could write/read to NTFS no problem. Not a really Linux person, but I remember trying that out because I didn't believe it even recognized the NTFS partitions automatically.
FAT32 is best if you need operating system portability.

Cheap and safe storage is RAID 5.
Safe, and fast would be RAID 0+1.

RAID 5 is the *cheapest* way to get what you want, nowhere near the most expensive.

For SATA:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=130417

For PATA:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=130406

I've used the PATA version with no problems, EXCELLENT product!
 
you dont want much do you :p

you have to trade off
FAT32 sux plain and simple, its recovery and security is horrible
compared to NTFS

but then there is the interoperability issue
Im not a Linux guru, so Im not exactly up to speed on which kernals support the Linux-NTFS project

and here is where I'll toss in the Alternate File Systems Links Ive compiled in the Advanced HDD Issues Sticky Thread and depart :p

Other Filesystems
The Linux Filesystem Explained
Linux Filesystems Comparison
Ext2FS
Ext3
ReiserFS
JFS for Linux
The Unix UFS Filesystem
Space efficiency SFS,FFS,AFS,FAT16,FAT32
 
Originally posted by NerdzRule7
alright guys, heres the deal. i've recently seen my storage needs increase and increase. raid 5 is just too expensive, /B]
Click to expand...
I hate to be a killjoy, but if you've seen your storage needs increase and increase, but you don't want reliable data storage, I'm not sure what anybody can tell you.

If the data is important, then you know what you have to do ( raid 5 and a backup of some sort ).
 
Sorry to say it, but honestly RAID 5 if you want any sort of redundancy. Of course, this means nothing without a backup plan.

Besides, its not nearly as expensive as you think. You can pick up some decent RAID hardware on ebay for fairly cheap if you look around. A little known thing I generally do when searching ebay is to try common typos. I happened across a dual channel U160 LSI SCSI RAID card for the bargain price of $130 new OEM... at a time when they were going for at least $200, sometimes up to $300. All because it was a typo on the sellers part. It happens.


Just keep an eye on prices for about a week so you know what to expect to spend. IDE RAID has come a long way and isn't terribly expensive. SCSI RAID will cost a bit more... especially in the HDD department unless you're happy to use refurb equipment. In that case, surpluscomputers.com has a fair number of refurb SCSI drives that usually carry at least a 30 day warranty, quite a few are 90 days.

Of course, you could always run software RAID. Of course, then you're limited to RAID 0 or 1. You don't have to pay for a RAID card, but you're HDD budget will definately increase quite a bit.


And, of course, the cheapest thing you could do would be to just delete some stuff. I know it's hard, but I find that if I haven't looked at it in a couple of months, I probably won't care. I used to keep my old HDDs around after upgrades just to keep the data. Eventually I realized that I had piles of drives that I never even used. I just decided that whatever was on them wasn't worth saving. I tried to connect them again to retrieve any data I might want, but I found that I tried to save too much even though I never really needed it. Just let it go.

Good luck in your quest.
 
ok.. so it sounds like my best bet would be a raid 5 array with an ntfs file system. and as long as i'm running a newer distro of linux i should be able to write? also, is raid 5 hard to do? raid 0 is easy on the card on my mobo, but my raid 5 array would be bigger. so i need all of the same type disks? i have 4 120's running right now, two WD's and two maxtor, would i have a problem putting them in a decent ide raid solution? also, would it even be worth it if i only have standard pci slots on my boards. would the raid card use so much bandwidth that it wouldnt really work? thanks again for your help guys-The_nerd
 
It would work and still be pretty quick.
As for the drives, if you have four you should do RAID 10, RAID 5 is generally 3 or 5 drives (RAID 10 (what I meant to say above, not 0+1) must be an even number of drives, RAID 5 must be odd).
The difference is RAID 5 writes slower, but both should read at the same speed. Both cards I showed above will do both.
It's not hard, Promise cards are pretty easy to use I think :)
Manuals aren't half bad.
 
Originally posted by MrMike
... As for the drives, if you have four you should do RAID 10, RAID 5 is generally 3 or 5 drives (RAID 10 (what I meant to say above, not 0+1) must be an even number of drives, RAID 5 must be odd)....
Click to expand...

Not true. RAID 5 can have as many drives as your controller can handle, even or odd. You must have a minimum of 3 drives, but even numbers work just as well as odd. I'm currently running a RAID 5 array with 8 disks in it.

BTW, RAID 5 would be more efficient than a RAID 10 or 0+1. RAID 10 and 0+1 use 4 disks, but you only get an amount of space equal to two of those drives added together. RAID 0 takes two drives and stripes them doubling the space. RAID 1 takes two drives and mirrors them, resulting in two identical copies... thus the amount of HDD space has not increased. RAID 0+1 and RAID 10 combine these two RAID levels for striped mirrors or mirrored stripes, thus you only have HDD space equal to two drives. Four 100GB drives would result in a 200GB of filespace.

RAID 5 writes parity across all the disks. The formula to know how much space you'll have in a RAID 5 array is the total number of drives minus 1. So if you have 4 100GB drives, you'll have 300GB of drive space (4 drives - 1 for distributed parity x 100GB).

You should use drives of the same size else you'll be limited by whichever is the smaller drive.
 
I would be careful writing to and NTFS partition with linux. I believe it is marked experimental, and people have suffered data lose from it.

Why not CHOOSE which OS will handle your file storage, and use that OS as a fileserver. If you run linux than use ext3, jfs, or reiser (sp?) and run samba for your windows machines to access the files on the linux machine.

If you are dual-booting, then I guess the data on the drives is not that big of a concern to you. Dual booting while many people do it safely does add a level of risk.
 
Originally posted by animeguru
Not true. RAID 5 can have as many drives as your controller can handle, even or odd. You must have a minimum of 3 drives, but even numbers work just as well as odd. I'm currently running a RAID 5 array with 8 disks in it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know the levels, just for some reason I thought RAID 5 was odd only. My bad, just never seen an even number of disks in a RAID 5 array, all the servers we have at work have an odd number of disks.

RAID 5 is definitely more efficient with space, but if you need write speed, I'd still go with RAID 10. That's RAID 5's only weakness. Otherwise RAID 10 *is* a waste of money and space if you're not doing anything that demands the write speed - absolutely.
 
Originally posted by m1abram
I would be careful writing to and NTFS partition with linux.
Click to expand...

agreed, review the Linux-NTFS Project for the latest issues\kernals
then check to see if there are drivers available for a specific card
and the card's FAQ and search dillegently for any card\linux\driver issues on user groups forums ect

as mentioned the effeciency of a RAID 5 increases with the number of drives
I run 6x40GB for 200GB (186.26 actual binary formatted) on a Promise XS6000 w\ 128MB PC133 Cache

Generally speaking what youd want, is a card with its own dedicated XOR processor,
some card also employ large caches as part of their strategy,
review benchmarks of specific cards

regarding if you need more bandwidth, that depends, what kind of access are you currently experiencing?
What do you foresee for growth?
Bandwidth definately impacts the benchmarks, especially when the large caches are employed,
you also want to keep an eye on CPU usage for any card
especially if it doesnt have an oncard processor
(my XS6000 has a dedicated Intel RISC processor)

A few SATA RAID cards reviewed (with Benchmarks) that will give you an idea of RAID 5 performance
(its in Dutch so paste the urls into WorldLingo Dutch > English > Machine Translation to do the whole page) 14 pages
Comparitive Benchmark Tables start in earnest on page 8

This site is like a Dutch Storagereview :p
He employs IPEAK SPT too, the basis for his Tweakers.net StorageMark 2003,
exactly what the SR employs in their Storagereview's Desktop DriveMark 2002
Yours for a measly +$900 :p (plus tweaking it)

PATA SX4000 review rudimentary review, flawed benchmarking


Links

RAID
Definitive Guide to RAID @ Storagereview
RAID I: The Lesser Levels @ Storage Review (0, 1 mirroring, 1 duplexing, 1+0)
RAID an In-Depth Guide @ SLCentral.com
The Skinny on RAID @ arstechnica
RAID: Your Guide @ PCMechanic
RAID Explained @ AnandTech (part of IDE RAID Comparison dated)
RAID.edu @ AC&NC
 
Originally posted by animeguru


Of course, you could always run software RAID. Of course, then you're limited to RAID 0 or 1. You don't have to pay for a RAID card, but you're HDD budget will definately increase quite a bit.
Click to expand...

???? Your not limited to 0,1 if u use software raid. If anything you have more options.

Reguarding NTFS in Linux. As of the 2.6 Kernel NTFS Read/Write has lost the Experimental Tag next to it. Im guessing it has become alot more stable.
 
Originally posted by SKiTLz

Reguarding NTFS in Linux. As of the 2.6 Kernel NTFS Read/Write has lost the Experimental Tag next to it. Im guessing it has become alot more stable.
Click to expand...

I noticed that too in the 2.6 kernel. However, I would personally wait and let others confirm its stability before trusting my data to it ;)
 
Originally posted by SKiTLz
???? Your not limited to 0,1 if u use software raid. If anything you have more options.

Reguarding NTFS in Linux. As of the 2.6 Kernel NTFS Read/Write has lost the Experimental Tag next to it. Im guessing it has become alot more stable.
Click to expand...


Sorry, I should have specified. I thought that you could only run 0 or 1 (or maybe 10 & 0+1) using Windows. I have minimal experience using *nix, so I can't speak for them.

Sorry if I caused any confusion. :p
 
Originally posted by animeguru
Sorry, I should have specified. I thought that you could only run 0 or 1 (or maybe 10 & 0+1) using Windows. I have minimal experience using *nix, so I can't speak for them.

Sorry if I caused any confusion. :p
Click to expand...
Well I've never run a Win Raid Array so it may well be limited to 0,1... Im pretty sure you can do 5 though. Maybe server versions only.

Linux You can do just about anything you can think of.
 
Originally posted by SKiTLz
Well I've never run a Win Raid Array so it may well be limited to 0,1... Im pretty sure you can do 5 though. Maybe server versions only.

Linux You can do just about anything you can think of.
Click to expand...

HOW TO: Set Up Fault-Tolerant Sets on Dynamic Disks in Windows 2000

Windows 2000 Server supports two types of fault-tolerant volumes: mirrored volumes and RAID-5 volumes.
Click to expand...


NOTE: Dynamic disks
are not supported on portable computers or on Windows XP Home Edition-based computers

edited for accuracy :rolleyes: (see below)
 
From Disk Management Help on Win2K:

"RAID-5 volumes are available only on computers running Windows 2000 Server. You can, however, use a computer running Windows 2000 Professional to create RAID-5 volumes on a remote computer running Windows 2000 Server. "

I don't believe it's available on WinXP Pro either, probably just Server 2003.
 
Thanks for the clarification everyone. Since I have only run hardware RAID solutions, I'm not too familiar with software RAID. Of course, I run Win2K Pro and that's the main reason I went to hardware RAID... the limitations in it's available software RAID. I just assumed that other win iterations were the same... doh!!
 
Originally posted by Cardboard Hammer
I don't believe it's available on WinXP Pro either, probably just Server 2003.
Click to expand...

I knew it was in Server 2003, but I checked a Win2K server box and a WinXP box and it was on the 2K Server but not the XP.
Has anyone actually tried it out?
I would assume it would run alright on any dual system.
 
just another fine example of me being
100% WRONG
:p :p :p
not the first time, surely not the last
I could have swore it was available
with any Dynamic Disk setup

obviously I havent run it :p

I have Hardware RAID5
 
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