Move away from ReiserFS?

Bad jokes aside, it seems there may soon be a stigma attached to ReiserFS.  We have always thought that offering additional file systems should be on Ye Olde Laundry List of features.  But should this move to the top of the list?

We selected ReiserFS for the following reasons in order of nicety (is that a word?):

- fast journaling

- no need to estimate number of inodes ahead of time

- pretty good allocator - seems to keep blocks of large files together

- very very good small file performance

So, what does everyone think?

My thoughts? Stigma be damned - if it works it works. It's like enjoying Michael Jackson's music, his older stuff anyway, I could care less that the guy is a freak. Choose a file system based on it's merits. ResierFS may or may not be the best, you're the one most likely to know, but the guy getting arrested doesn't change that.

A question - woould EXT3 be easier to "recover" if the need arises? I can say that I had little luck recovering Reiser and that tools for EXT3 seemed more plentiful. Not sure that's good or bad here or there but perhaps a consideration?

Well, while I would like to see other FS choices I think the 'stigma' should be the last reason to add support for others.  I would, at this time, rather see UnRaid improved in other areas, security, indexing and search, [insert laundry list here], etc, before adding new file systems to the mix.

Having said that, I voted yes though.

I vote a definate NO.

This whole 'stigma' thing is, frankly bullshit. The guys hasn't been convicted of anything and here we are running around as though he is guilty. Shame on us. Who cares about guilt or innocense when it comes to using reiserfs? My computer doesn't really care, nor do I.

It's like the crap about removing all images of the 'twin towers' from all software, movies, etc. after 9/11 and stil saying 'we will never forget'! There are WAY more important things to accomplish on 'ye olde laundry list' than to try and do the 'politically correct' thing.

If reiserfs is the best, then keep using it!

Sorry for the rant, but this whole politically correct attitude that society is taking lately REALLY pisses me off.

-PGPfan

I think you should leave the ability to choose other file systems on your laundry list, but NOT move it to the top of the list.  This is a great feature if a person is migrating from another server, but not real important to most unRaid users.  About the only file-system most would love to see is NTFS to ease data migration, but as we have already discussed in other threads, full R/W for it is still not possible without using a proprietary driver and you already have read-only support.

True bugs should come first, then security, then the rest of the laundry list.  As already stated, we are looking for best performance, best recovery from power failures, and best use of our disk storage space... not trying to distance ourselfs from the original author of the source code because he was arrested.

Joe L.

I voted don't care as mostly, I don't.  Support to read other file systems to help with data migration as has been said would be nice, but I agree that top of the list should be bug fixes/performance enhancements closely followed by security.

Matt

The only question I have is of support and further developement of ReiserFS.  Will it continue to be supported and improved or will it become a dead end FS?

I voted No, although of course it wouldn't in theory hurt to have other options. But as others have said there are far more pressing options.

And I would hate for the ReiserFS part of unRaid come to a dead end (OK, not the best choice of phrase). If it does come to that and I needed to move on to the next version, how would I convert my then current unRaid data to the new FS? There would have to be some utility to do an "in-place" conversion of the ReiserFS data to the new FS, as many of us wouldn't have much spare capacity to shuffle data around.

I voted I don't care, but 'd love to see a FS that was more accessible from windows (i.e. ntfs) in a disaster recovery scenario whan say 2 disks fail.

Getting data off RFS disks under windows strikes me as being a pain.

I said "no" based on the reason (the "stigma").  I trust that Tom has selected the best file system for the job.  If there are truly compelling reasons to change to another file system in the future, then by all means change.  But there are a lot of other higher priority items on "the list" today.

Kevin

I say NO!  Stay on course with the upgardes to the current unRaid software.

The only issue I have with this FS is the fact that there are no defrag tools available that I can find.  I don't care what anyone says, ALL file systems fragment.  Granted Reiser does a good job of keeping large files contiguous, but with the typical file sizes we use with UnRaid (DVDs, ISOs, etc.,) fragmentation will occur, and it would be nice to be able to clean it up, especially when a drive starts getting full.  I do seem to remember reading that the next planned version was supposed to include a defrag utility, but who knows if we'll see it...

I say YES...but my reasoning is very different then you may think....

ummmm basically I am not a conformist and most every one else said NO.....thats my reason

I say YES...but my reasoning is very different then you may think....

 

ummmm basically I am not a conformist and most every one else said NO.....thats my reason

I said yes first.  Way to follow in my footsteps dude. 

From my understanding Reiser is great for small files, and almost as good for large files.  As UnRaid is a multimedia server most/all of my files are very large.  So I don't see the advatange for this application.  I'd prefer using a filesystem that is optimized for large files.

I'm in the "No" camp.  For me adding the variable of the selected Filing System when trying to iron out bugs/problems with UnRaid just make life more difficult.

Now, IF however you decided to Jump 100% to a different File System for performance/feature reason, say NTFS, AND we had a nifty utility we could run whereby our ReiserFS partitions miraculously became NTFS partitions I might be up for that

Mark.

Sure NTFS would be wonderful, but if your going to go that far why not look into the new file system for next year's Vista server software FS.

I thought WinFS had been canned.  TBH, I think you should stick with RFS unless there is a really compelling reason to switch and even then, it's a lot of work (both coding/distribution/people upgrading) for all concerned for presumably little benefit?

Matt

I thought WinFS had been canned.

Merely delayed from what I heard. WinFS was to rolled out when the server edition hits the streets 2Q 2007, then it will be made available to Vista shortly 3Q? maybe.

Yeah sure.

One word - Cairo

Yeah sure.

 

One word - Cairo

As someone who worked on Cairo many moons ago, I can tell you that _lots_ of Cairo actually ended up shipping, just in bits and pieces in other operating systems.

WinFS will be available not too long after Vista RTM is my understanding.  I'd consider that reliable.

Surely it'll be in SP1?  If so, that'll likely be getting on for a year, if not many months?

Matt

Even if WinFS is still not shipping, surely there are development documents and tools to support integrating the new technology. Any way I'm not informed enough to know if WinFS should even be the new file system, Tom will have to decide if it meets the needs and demands of UnRaid. After that decision I'm sure many moons will pass before such a major change to the software is implemented. It's possible that  WinFS may even be shipping by that time.  In the end it seems that the current FS is adequate and that a change should be made only to improve the functions and reliability of UnRaid, thus if a change is to be made lets not change for changes sake, but to have the best FS for UnRaid purposes even if it's not quite ready yet.

Slightly old, but it might be of some interest: Hans Reiser is apparently putting his company (which owns reiserfs) up for sale. Here's an article from Wired News.

I voted "Don't care" because the decision on which file system to use should be based on technical merit (i.e., how fast is the I/O, how easy is it to recover, etc.) and support (i.e., if you discover a bug, is there a company or community to support a workaround and/or fix).

So I'd agree with others that you should leave it on the laundry list (as the future of the company is now in doubt), but leave it way down on the list.  I'd argue that other features, like security, are much more important.

BillK