alternative filesystems for SSD

I am tired of watching fsck check my filesystem when my eeepc 901 shuts down abruptly due to a crash. I know that with a journaling filesystem, I won't have to wait for a check. However, I am well aware of the poor I/O performance of the SSD, so I can imagine using a journaling filesystem being even more frustrating, since there will be constant writes to the journal?

I will buy a new laptop without such a crummy ssd someday but, is there anything I can do now, on the software side of things?

freedrull

Posted 2011-02-14T17:13:15.487

Reputation: 973

1What are you on now? ext2/3 are older than ext4, and ext4 was made in the knowledge of ssds. – tobylane – 2011-02-14T17:40:33.897

You might also want to read Aligning filesystems to an SSD’s erase block size by Theodore Ts'o (one the men behind ext4).

– Cristian Ciupitu – 2011-02-15T01:28:29.240

"I am well aware of the poor I/O performance of the SSD" - Are you sure? My SSD is for sure way faster than my (fake) RAID-10. – maaartinus – 2011-02-15T05:14:56.923

@tobylane i'm on ext2 – freedrull – 2011-02-15T06:12:30.990

@maaartinus This model has a 4gb master ssd, and a 16gb slave. The slave drive is much slower. http://www.shinyplastic.com/archives/05-21-2008-ultraportables-eee-pc-900-ssd-is-slow.php

– freedrull – 2011-02-15T06:15:16.680

Answers

There are log-structured file systems available, like LogFS and NilFS that may be more performant on your SSD, but I'm unsure of their stability.

afrazier

Posted 2011-02-14T17:13:15.487

Reputation: 21 316

Is one of these FS stable by 2018 ? Is F2FS a good choice ? – SebMa – 2018-11-23T17:13:14.890

@SebMa: I'm not sure what happened with any of those fliesystems, but SSDs had their performance increase to the point where it doesn't really matter anymore. – afrazier – 2018-11-26T23:19:03.387

try with ReiserFS - checking fs is very fast. This is my fs of choice - rock solid

jet

Posted 2011-02-14T17:13:15.487

Reputation: 2 675

But will it be constantly writing to the journal? This could be a problem since the ssd is so slow... – freedrull – 2011-02-14T23:46:16.857

Another filesystem to try is btrFS. According to one of the main developers of ext3 and ext4, ext4 was actually intended more of a gateway between ext3 and btrFS (much like Microsoft's failed Windows ME transition from dos-based to NT-based). btrFS is still not at a "stable" release, but I hear it is very stable.

--EDIT-- By not "stable" but stable, I mean I don't know of any serious problems that would affect someone who uses a system normally. It's still considered a development version, but it's fairly polished.

TuxRug

Posted 2011-02-14T17:13:15.487

Reputation: 1 616