[CLUG] ext3

[Harry J Walsh]

>>>>> "Robert" == Robert Heffernan <bobheff at esatclear.ie> writes:
    Robert> given that I know nothing about either I've elected to
    Robert> stick with ext2 but, what are the major benifits of both?
    Robert> Is ext3 merely a new and improved filesystem or is it
    Robert> merely for specific purposes, or is it just different and
    Robert> equivalent wrt performance?

Ext3 is a superset of ext2.  It's easy to convert between ext2 and
ext3 and vice versa.

The main benefit of ext3 is journaling.  It's a mechanism of keeping
the filesystem intact and free from the types of errors that
incomplete buffer flushes can introduce ( all those dodgy y/n
questions ext2 fsck asks ).  fscks at bootup aren't
necessary with ext3 because the implementation of buffer management
avoids the types of situation that fsck is designed to protect
against.

Aat bootup all unflushed journal files are either commited to
the filesystem  or discarded.  The whole process will not take more
than a few seconds, and doesn't depend on disk size, but journal
size.

--
hjw