Filesystem choice for fresh install: ext3 or ext4

[dspillett]

I am creating a fresh install for Zimbra 7.x on Ubuntu 10.04.

When ext4 first became common there were concerns in some circles regarding greater data-loss risk in some circumstances (like a power-out) due to changes in default sync behaviours and such, so many recommended staying with ext3 for the time being and some tools (VirtualBox for instance) still give warnings when you use them on an ext4 filesystem.

It there any official recommendation for Zimbra on Ubuntu 10.04 running in a VM? Accept the default ext4 for the performance benefits it promises, or select ext3 as it may be considered safer?

[lytledd]

Not official from me, but I'm running under Virtual Box4 with XFS for the mail store and ext3 for the OS partition.

This allows the use of XFS Snapshots and it in turn does an XFS Freeze. This is how I do my nightly backups on a live system.

Doug

[dspillett]

Originally Posted by lytledd

This allows the use of XFS Snapshots and it in turn does an XFS Freeze. This is how I do my nightly backups on a live system.

I use LVM snapshots (which are conveniently filesystem agnostic) for this.

The server is only down for the length of time to do down, start the snapshot, and come back up again. When backing up with snapshots you still need to have Zimbra stopped at the point the snapshot is taken otherwise you can't guarantee your backup is entirely 100% consistent (otherwise Zimbra could be in the middle of a series of related writes at the point the snapshot is taken).

[zwvpadmin]

I'm looking for the exact same answer for the exact same reason.

I've attached a 500gb iSCSI slice from a Dell Equallogic to an Ubuntu 10.04 LTS server VM. I'm trying to decide what file system to use. The default on the OS install seems to be Ext2 for the boot and Linux-LVM for the system. Not sure how to accurately verify.

[patit]

Same concern, though it seems ext3 is to be preferred:

Performance Tuning Guidelines for Large Deployments - Zimbra :: Wiki

[dspillett]

Aye, I went with ext3 in the end on the basis that it has worked perfectly on other installs and I have no specific reason to go for ext4 (for our userbase size the performance differences are going to be minimal).

[exante]

My server runs on ext4 and haven't had any issues. Not sure if there are any particular perks as others have mentioned. It really depends on what your doing.