[mythtv-users] ext3fs for recordings file system when using slow deletes

[Michael T. Dean]

On 08/26/06 05:24, Cameron Watt wrote:

> I am in the process of rebuilding my combined fe/be myth machine and 
> have been considering using ext3 for the recording file system. I am 
> aware that ext3 wasn't recommended before the incremental deletion 
> code was added, but I am wondering if this has changed since it was 
> added to svn.
>
> If I understand the issue correctly, the file deletion performance was 
> the reason for "non recommendation".
>
> 1/ Is this delete performance the problem?
> 2/ Does the incremental deletion code now mean that ext3fs is a viable 
> alternative to jfs or xfs?
> 3/ Is there any other reason to not use ext3?

I'm using ext3 (and have been--even before the incremental deletes) and 
it works like a charm.  It's rock-solid stable and, now, with the 
incremental delete, it never affects system responsiveness (before, 
after a delete of a 1-2GiB file, it would "lock up" for 1-3 seconds).

> I have been using xfs on lvm, recently I had an issue with lockups on 
> my system. I read somewhere in another thread that some people found 
> that unless they kept up to 30% of the file system free they had some 
> weird lockup issues. Also I have thought about what happens if I loose 
> a drive out of the lvm, I am worried about not being able to recover 
> the rest of the volume group. When the multiple recording directories 
> is added (which I believe will happen after 0.20 some time) the need 
> for LVM is not really as great.

You can even use Myth without LVM now if you're willing to use symlinks 
(i.e. check out myth_archive_job.pl in the contrib directory--which, 
BTW, has nothing to do with MythArchive).  Just make sure you mount the 
other filesystems beneath your recordings directory.  Then you can move 
files to other filesystems and use links (with the 
delete-follows-symlinks option) to allow Myth to find the files.

Mike