On Mon, 11 Aug 2003, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> scott.marlowe wrote:
> > On Fri, 8 Aug 2003, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> >
> > > On Fri, Aug 08, 2003 at 09:40:20AM -0700, Jonathan Gardner wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Redhat puts ext3 on by default. Consider switching to a non-journaling FS
> > > > (ext2?) with the partition that holds your data and WAL.
> > >
> > > I would give you exactly the opposite advice: _never_ use a
> > > non-journalling fs for your data and WAL. I suppose if you can
> > > afford to lose some transactions, you can do without journalling.
> > > Otherwise, you're just borrowing trouble, near as I can tell.
> >
> > I'd argue that a reliable filesystem (ext2) is still better than a
> > questionable journaling filesystem (ext3 on kernels <2.4.20).
> >
> > This isn't saying to not use jounraling, but I would definitely test it
> > under load first to make sure it's not gonna lose data or get corrupted.
>
> That _would_ work if ext2 was a reliable file system --- it is not.
>
> This is the problem of Linux file systems --- they have unreliable, and
> journalled, with nothing in between, except using a journalling file
> system and having it only journal metadata.
Never the less, on LINUX, which is what we use, it is by far more reliable
than ext3 or reiserfs. In four years of use I've lost zero files to any
of its bugs. Of course, maybe that's RedHat patching the kernel for me or
something. :-) they seem to hire some pretty good hackers.
