Update Documentation/filesystems/ext4.txt

Fix paragraph with recommendations on how to tune ext4 for benchmarks.

Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@mit.edu>
This commit is contained in:
Theodore Ts'o 2009-01-06 14:53:06 -05:00
parent 59e315b4c4
commit 8e1a4857cd

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@ -58,13 +58,22 @@ Note: More extensive information for getting started with ext4 can be
# mount -t ext4 /dev/hda1 /wherever
- When comparing performance with other filesystems, remember that
ext3/4 by default offers higher data integrity guarantees than most.
So when comparing with a metadata-only journalling filesystem, such
as ext3, use `mount -o data=writeback'. And you might as well use
`mount -o nobh' too along with it. Making the journal larger than
the mke2fs default often helps performance with metadata-intensive
workloads.
- When comparing performance with other filesystems, it's always
important to try multiple workloads; very often a subtle change in a
workload parameter can completely change the ranking of which
filesystems do well compared to others. When comparing versus ext3,
note that ext4 enables write barriers by default, while ext3 does
not enable write barriers by default. So it is useful to use
explicitly specify whether barriers are enabled or not when via the
'-o barriers=[0|1]' mount option for both ext3 and ext4 filesystems
for a fair comparison. When tuning ext3 for best benchmark numbers,
it is often worthwhile to try changing the data journaling mode; '-o
data=writeback,nobh' can be faster for some workloads. (Note
however that running mounted with data=writeback can potentially
leave stale data exposed in recently written files in case of an
unclean shutdown, which could be a security exposure in some
situations.) Configuring the filesystem with a large journal can
also be helpful for metadata-intensive workloads.
2. Features
===========
@ -74,7 +83,7 @@ Note: More extensive information for getting started with ext4 can be
* ability to use filesystems > 16TB (e2fsprogs support not available yet)
* extent format reduces metadata overhead (RAM, IO for access, transactions)
* extent format more robust in face of on-disk corruption due to magics,
* internal redunancy in tree
* internal redundancy in tree
* improved file allocation (multi-block alloc)
* fix 32000 subdirectory limit
* nsec timestamps for mtime, atime, ctime, create time
@ -116,6 +125,12 @@ grouping of bitmaps and inode tables. Some test results available here:
When mounting an ext4 filesystem, the following option are accepted:
(*) == default
ro Mount filesystem read only. Note that ext4 will
replay the journal (and thus write to the
partition) even when mounted "read only". The
mount options "ro,noload" can be used to prevent
writes to the filesystem.
extents (*) ext4 will use extents to address file data. The
file system will no longer be mountable by ext3.
@ -144,7 +159,11 @@ journal_dev=devnum When the external journal device's major/minor numbers
identified through its new major/minor numbers encoded
in devnum.
noload Don't load the journal on mounting.
noload Don't load the journal on mounting. Note that
if the filesystem was not unmounted cleanly,
skipping the journal replay will lead to the
filesystem containing inconsistencies that can
lead to any number of problems.
data=journal All data are committed into the journal prior to being
written into the main file system.
@ -219,9 +238,12 @@ minixdf Make 'df' act like Minix.
debug Extra debugging information is sent to syslog.
errors=remount-ro(*) Remount the filesystem read-only on an error.
errors=remount-ro Remount the filesystem read-only on an error.
errors=continue Keep going on a filesystem error.
errors=panic Panic and halt the machine if an error occurs.
(These mount options override the errors behavior
specified in the superblock, which can be configured
using tune2fs)
data_err=ignore(*) Just print an error message if an error occurs
in a file data buffer in ordered mode.