Reliability of Journalling Filesystems Under Linux?

chrysrobyn asks: "Every write-up I see about journalling file systems under Linux discusses efficiency (embedded) or speed (desktop/server). Have any studies been done on reliability? I've used Linux since Slackware 96 (and kernel 2.0.0), and put it on 9 or 10 machines over the years (Slackware on x86 and Debian on PPC), but I've never strayed from ext2. Always, when the uptime gets high, 20-50 days, the filesystems start to get minor fsck errors. Not that I repair the system and expect it to stay live, I just use the fsck -n to help me decide when a repair is in order. Since the same thing has happened on a variety of hardware (386-PII and every interface in between and 601 and 750 processors with Apple hardware), I'm leaning on blaming the ext2 filesystem for these, the slightest of problems. I typically keep my servers up for as long as possible because 95% of my hardware problems have happened during resets and cold power-ups. It's time for my every-other-year rebuild of my personal server, with another on its way, so I was hoping to incite some anecdotal Slashdot conversation on the journalling file systems available for Linux. Personally, I'm most interested in hearing about the file systems supported under Debian stable for ease of administration for this machine which is a 5 hour drive away from home. I've been around the block a few times, so I'm not fearful of patching the kernel with better patches, but I'm respectful of the work the Debian assurance teams have done."

Comments

High uptime?

[mnordstr]

"when the uptime gets high, 20-50 days"

That's not high uptime! Maybe if you're running Windows 95. I've had my system running for a little over 320 days now, and I haven't experienced any problems on any of my ext3 drives. And I've never before experienced any problems, on ext3/2 HDs. If you want reliability, I think the best thing you can do is buy a UPS. That makes it much more reliable than any FS change can do.

Do not trust your fs

[jsse]

trust your backup.

Two cents from an old admin.

Do not trust your backup...

[V. Mole]

Test your backup. Not just once, but periodically.

Two cents from a (different) old admin.

Re:Ext3 vs ReiserFS

[joshki]

My personal experience with XFS has been horrible -- I've had several partitions completely trashed.

Quoting from the Gentoo x86 install guide:

"Please be careful with XFS; this filesystem has a tendency to fry lots of data if the system crashes or you lose power. Originally, it seemed like a promising filesystem but it now appears that this tendency to lose data is a major achilles' heel."

I would not recommend XFS until some major work has been done.