EXT4 File System Test

Article Title: EXT4 file system test. Linux is a technology channel of the IT lab in China. It includes desktop applications, Linux system management, kernel research, embedded systems, open source, and other basic categories. news source: linuxtoy.org
Ext3 has become a widely used Linux file system. However, when the capacity of the hardware device reaches terabyte, exts began to show its limitations to the storage devices in the 21st century, therefore, Linux core developers started to execute ext4. Although the ext4 file system is regarded as completely stable only when it reaches Kernel 2.6.28, it is believed that many people will use the ext4 file system with the release of Fedora 10. What is the performance of the ext4 file system? Hope this article comes from PhoronixTo answer some questions.

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The evaluation uses the hardware platform for Intel dual quad-core Xeon E5320, tai'an i5400XT, Kingston FB-DIMM 2 GB, Western Digital WD1600YS-01SHB1 SATA 160 GB hard drive, Asus Geforce 9600GT 512 MB. The software platform is the Fedora 10 X86_64 Linux 2.6.27 kernel, X server 1.5.3, GNOME 2.24.1, GCC 4.3.2, and IcedTea 1.3.1. The graphics card driver uses nVidia 180.08. All except the 4 gb swap are root partitions. The evaluation will be used in EXT3, EXT4, XFS, and ReiserFS file systemsPhoronix Test Suit 1.6.0 Alpha 2Test the following items: Nexuiz, World of Padman, Unreal Tournament sp_7-Zip compression, parallel BZIP2 compression, LZMA compression, LAME MP3 encoding, FFmpeg encoding, GnuPG file encryption, OpenSSL, and Bork file encryption. After each test in a file system, the system will be re-installed, except SELinux is disabled. In addition, Bonnie ++, IOzone and Flexible IO Tester will be used for pure theoretical performance testing.

The following is the test result bar chart:

Conclusion:
In the three pure theoretical performance testing software Bonnie ++, IOzone, and Flexible IO Tester, EXT4 won the first place in eight tests, and XFS won the first place in the remaining three tests. Unless your job is to test the theoretical performance of the file system, this result cannot be described too much.

In the tests of Nexuiz, World of Padman, and Unreal Tournament 2004, the four file systems were very similar, this means that migrating the file system to EXT4 or XFS won't get a higher Frame Rate for game running.

In the File compression test, EXT4 and XFS shared their headers and did not provide any space for other file systems.

In the multimedia encoding test, the four file systems have their own advantages and disadvantages, which means HD fans do not need to switch to the new file system immediately. The old EXT3 is still good. This is also reflected in the encryption test. EXT3 won the GnuPG encryption test champion, while EXT4 occupies the throne of Bork encryption test performance.

In actual performance tests, EXT4 does not bring about performance improvement as much as in pure theoretical tests, but migration to EXT4 file systems is not completely beneficial. Compared with its predecessor, the EXT4 file system increases the partition capacity limit, increases the number of allowed subdirectories, and adds the function of hot fragment and log verification code. The most important thing is that the introduction of these new functions has no impact on stability, and it is as secure and efficient as ever. AsBtrfsEXT4 is worth your consideration when you get a transitional product that has been widely used.