What is the most efficient Linux file system for laptops?

Posted by Vivek on Tuesday May 29, 07 @1:16 pm

There is some debate going on and the question is:

What is the most efficient Linux file system for laptops?

I think ext3 doing well but again I don’t have complete answer here.

We have some smart people around here. So please add your thoughts and suggestion in comments. If you can't offer a complete answer it's still helpful to get things started and point people in the right direction for more information

Want to stay up to date with the latest Linux tips, news and announcements? Subscribe to our free e-mail newsletter or full RSS feed to get all updates. You can Email this page to a friend.

Discussion on This Article:

0xAF Says: May 29th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
i’m gentoo user for some years now.
here is what i did with my hdd:

i’ve made a 2gb partition with reiserfs for portage (the package manager of gentoo) which has a huge number of small files (ebuilds)… and AFAIK reiser is doing great with many and small files.
the other partitions are on ext3 (for stability reasons)

im using reiser and ext3 for many years now … my opinion is that reiser is more stable but when it crash … its your nightmare (i have 4-5 reiser crashes and only 2 was successfuly saved)…
ext3 is easily repaired throught.

before 2004 i was slackware user for about 8 years and i was using reiser a lot there … so there comes my opinion with reiser… from 2004 until now im a gentoo user with ext3 mostly.
Rodolfo Pilas Says: May 29th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
ext3 is the result of evolution of an ancient filesystem. Then there are many improvements that other filesystem do not has.

When you have only one hard drive ext3 is an excellent idea.

ReiserFS is the better in a raid environment.

XFS is excellent for big files.
devnet Says: May 29th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Mixing filesystems on the same Linux install will result in slower seek times for hard disks as the kernel calls up different modules to read different filesystems…I’d say that ext3 straight across the board would be efficient enough for laptop use…until reiser4 comes along.
vivek Says: May 31st, 2007 at 9:08 am
0xAF, Rodolfo and devnet,

To summarize
ReiserFS - Good for small files
ext3 - Old good stable and sufficent for laptop usage
XFS - For big files

Appreciate all of your posts and suggestions!
0xAF Says: June 1st, 2007 at 12:20 pm
vivek:
ext3 is not so old … ext2 is old … and ext3 is actualy ext2 with journaling support which makes ext3 up-to-date fs.

devnet:
i’m not sure mixing the fs will result in slower seek… its true that the kernel will call diff. routines for seeking, but i dont see how this will slower the seeking… IMHO it dosnt metter which routine will be called to seek becouse the call will be just one instruction in asm (JMP) and it dosnt metter which routine will be called … (thats my opinion)
vivek Says: June 1st, 2007 at 9:16 pm
0xAF,

Oh, my bad, you are right ext3 is updated version.. I’m getting old

I don’t think so mixing fs will result into seek issues.

@Devnet: can you provide any link or document that supports your claim????
devnet Says: June 4th, 2007 at 3:02 am
@0xAF,

None other than just thinking about what happens at the kernel level. In my thinking, calling on one filesystem module as opposed to two different calls should be faster. Not to mention that there are different check routines for booting when mixing reiser and ext3…and top it off with having to manage reiser ones differently should they become corrupt…the advantage you might get from having a reiserfs somewhere there wouldn’t cut it. I’d stick with ext3 until something better came along.

So I have no concrete proof other than logical thinking :/

I’m sure someone out there has done a filesystem comparison like this…I just haven’t read it
Erik Says: June 6th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
KISS = Keep it Simple Stupid

I use my Linux laptop (luggable dare I say) for work everyday. So i need a filesystem that is robust and very easy to fix if something goes wrong. For this I use ext3. I don’t even use LVM.

Stability and time to recovery are most important. If I really need a faster filesystem, I put a 7200rpm disk instead of a 5400rpm.
Musab Says: June 15th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
Ubuntu is the best for all computers
Shannon Says: January 10th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Does nobody see JFS as beeing a good choice? As far as my research shows, the top three options would be:

1. EXT3 (slower, less disk space, but more reliable for data integrity and recovery, and more tools for repair and recovery if something goes wrong.)

2. JFS (The best all around for speed and reliability, but journals only metadata and does not have as much support for recovery in catastrophic situations as EXT3.)

3. XFS (The best disk space utilization, and in many cases the fastest. Best handling of very large files. Best fragmentation minimization, and works best with multi-processor systems. The drawback is that this filesystem has the highest potential for data loss in a power outage or drive crash situation.)

For mission critical, I choose old and boring: EXT3.

If you’re making regular backups, you can get the best of both worlds by using XFS and backing up frequently.

For a good balance, use JFS.

Reiser FS doesn’t figure in because while it may be good for many small files, and be fairly quick, it has two major drawbacks:

1. Extraordinarily slow mount and unmount times make large volumes halt the boot process for ridiculous amounts of time.

2. If there is a problem, Reiser FS (in my experience) tends to be rather squirrely.

Safe but slow: EXT3
Fast but riskier: XFS
Good balance: JFS

Have fun.
slack Says: January 20th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Yeah,reiser good but very slow at mount,

I’m using ext3 xfs combination and performance is ok;

bwt zfs is coming with FreeBSD 7.0..
DETATCH Says: March 4th, 2008 at 6:37 am
shannon, i’m new to the linux world, currently installing ubuntu on my desktop, and i found your entry to be the most usefull in choosing wich file system to use, i’ve got it narrowed down (from the huge list on the disk) to either xfs or jfx. just wonderin (for anyone to say) what “dont_use”, “efi” and “swap” are…..

thanks everyone, and keep up the good work.