[nzlug] reiser3 vs. ext3 & co.

[R. Eimann]

Hi,

In an effort to update the cryptosystem fromm cryptoloop to dm-crypt I'm 
curently moving files between different file systems. I generally use file 
systems provided by opensuse 10.3 without tuning their default settings.

I have one filesystem that uses 4.107.188 kBytes under ReiserFS3. I copied its 
files out to an ext3 filesystem. There, the same data occupies 9.130.932 
kBytes, that's an insane inflation of 222%!

Apparently, ext3 is a faily poor choice when it comes to storing many small 
files (1.7 million files are stored in this file system). 

On the other hand, ReiserFS does not seem to be an ideal choice for multicore 
systems as my box (some global kernel locking issue). Is there a good 
alternative such as XFS or JFS (which I have no experience with whatsoever) 
that does behave well for multiprocessor systems, is well supported under 
Linux and stores samll files as efficiently as ReiserFS?

Cheers,
R. Eimann


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