Friday, 6 July 2012

Diff between ext2 & ext3, ext4

Extended n file system
ext2 :
- Introduced with kernel 1.0 in 1993
- Flexible can handle upto 4TB
- super block feature increase file system performance
- ext2 reserve 5% of disk space for root
- ext2 is popular on USB and other solid-state devices.
  This is because it does not have a journaling function.
  so it generally makes fewer reads and writes to the drive,
  effectively extending the life of the device .
-  NO journalalizm

ext3 :
- Provide all the feature of ext 2 + journaling and backward compatibility .
- can upgrade ext2 to ext3 without loss of data.
- journaling feature speed up the system to recover the state after power-failure
  or improper mount unmount etc.
- Example: In ext2 in an improper unmount or in-between power-off etc.. so in time
  of receiver it checks whole file system .
  But in ext3 it keeps record of uncommitted file transactions and checks applied
  on on them so system will come back up in faster and quicker .
-

ext4:
- Introduced with kernel 2.6.28
- Ext4 is a deeper improvement over Ext3
- support  larger filesystem, faster checking, nanosecond timestamps,
  and verification of the journal through checksums.
- It’s backward and forward compatible with versions 2 and 3, so we can
  mount a ext2 or ext3 filesystem as ext4 .
- The main benefits that ext4 has over ext3 are:
  - faster time-stamping
  - faster file system checking
  - journaling check-sums
  - extents (basically automatic space allocation to avoid fragmentation)

What is Journalism in linux file syatem ?
A journaling is a file system,  that keeps track of the changes that will be made in
a journal (usually a circular log in a dedicated area of the file system) before committing them to
the main file system. In the event of a system crash or power failure, such file systems are quicker
to bring back online and less likely to become corrupted.

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