[KLUG Members] re: quota and file systems

[Miles Pschigoda]

Quoting Mike Williams <knightperson at zuzax.com>:

> Adam wrote:
> >The inode block map for every file on an XFS filesystem is about ~2k. 
> >So if the file is less than 2k XFS uses the inode block map area itself
> >to store the contents of the file, and performs no data block
allocation.
> >
> >(a) This leaves the data block available for use by other larger files.
> >(b) Since opening a file ***ALWAYS*** involves reading its inode -
> >opening a small file can be accomplished in 2 I/O operations (seekInode
> >+ readInode) vs 4 (seekInode + readInode + seekDataBlock +
> >readDataBlock)
> >(c) A typical filesystem contains MANY <2k files.
> >(d) Allocating a datablock requires LOCKING the free list, so only a
> >limited number of file-size-expansions can occur at once (on a
> >traditional filesystem ONLY *ONE* can occur at a time, XFS works around
> >that, but the number is still at something like 4 - 16).  By using the
> >inode to store data the free list never has to be locked for allocation
> >unless the filesize increases past 2k.
> >  
> >
> Yet another example of neat tricks that makes one file system better 
> than another.  What about some of the others like jfs or the Rieser
that 
> SuSE seems to like?  Any neat tricks there?  I won't ask about Ext3
> 
> because I know it's basically ext2 with a journal.

I've a question about the different Filesystems:

I have a low speed/non-critical system, but of course I want it to run
as fast and reliable as I can get it.  The system is running fine on a
Slackware 8.0, kernel-2.4.25. Most of my files are quite small,
probably under the 2k mark for most ouside of the music backup.    

So what's a good choice for a 200 MHz Pent. 2 class file server/mp3
player and CD-Burner? 

-- MilesP