Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751366AbWAVVDZ (ORCPT ); Sun, 22 Jan 2006 16:03:25 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751365AbWAVVDZ (ORCPT ); Sun, 22 Jan 2006 16:03:25 -0500 Received: from thunk.org ([69.25.196.29]:39118 "EHLO thunker.thunk.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751366AbWAVVDO (ORCPT ); Sun, 22 Jan 2006 16:03:14 -0500 Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 13:28:01 -0500 From: "Theodore Ts'o" To: John Stoffel Cc: Takashi Sato , ext2-devel@lists.sourceforge.net, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH] ext3: Extends blocksize up to pagesize Message-ID: <20060122182801.GA7082@thunk.org> Mail-Followup-To: Theodore Ts'o , John Stoffel , Takashi Sato , ext2-devel@lists.sourceforge.net, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org References: <000001c61c30$00814e80$4168010a@bsd.tnes.nec.co.jp> <17358.25398.943860.755559@smtp.charter.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <17358.25398.943860.755559@smtp.charter.net> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.11 X-SA-Exim-Connect-IP: X-SA-Exim-Mail-From: tytso@thunk.org X-SA-Exim-Scanned: No (on thunker.thunk.org); SAEximRunCond expanded to false Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1896 Lines: 39 On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 10:48:06AM -0500, John Stoffel wrote: > > Takashi> As a disk tends to get large, a disk storage has had a > Takashi> capacity to supply multi-TB. But now, ext3 can't support > Takashi> more than 8TB filesystem when blocksize is 4KB. That's why I > Takashi> think ext3 needs to be more than 8TB. > > Man, I don't want to even think about doing an FSCK on an 8TB > filesystem running ext[23] at all. > > In that size range, you really need a filesystem which doesn't need an > FSCK at all. Not sure what the real answer is though... Ext3 doesn't require a fsck under normal circumstances. The only reason why it still requires a periodic fsck after some number of mounts is sheer paranoia about the reliability of PC class hardware. All filesystems need some kind of filesystem consistency checker to deal with filesystem corruptions caused by OS bugs or hardware corruption bugs. The only question is whether or not the filesystem assumes at a fundamental level whether or not the hardware can be trusted to be reliable or not. (People have claimed that XFS is much less robust in the face of hardware errors when compared to ext[23]; I haven't seen a definitive study on the issue, although that tends to correspond with my experience. Other people would say it doesn't matter because that's why you pay $$$$$ for am EMC Symmetrix box or an IBM shark/DS6000/DS8000, or some other Really Expensive Storage Hardware.) But if you're willing to assume that your hardware is reliable and never fails, hey, feel free to disable the periodic FSCK checking using the command: "tune2fs -c 0 -i 0 /dev/sdXXX". - Ted - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/