[mythtv-users] Information/Recommendations on a new MythTV

[Michael Hobbs]

Timothy Chartier wrote:
>> I've read about issues with Reiser but have no personal
>> experience.
>>     
>
> Any chance you remember what some of those issues were?
>   
Reiser3 had some file corruption problems. Most distros have been using 
Reiser4 for several years now.
>> In practice, with EXT3, I have discovered that if I delete a
>> recording of more than 1 hour duration while recording I will get
>> hits in the recording. Deleting files of 1 hour or less seems to
>> cause no problems.
>>     
>
> So as long as I don't delete while recording I should be fine. However I still think I want to go XFS if I can easily with the debian network installer.
I recently did my own benchmarks creating and deleting a 4 GB file on 
EXT3, Reiser4, JFS, and XFS. I unfortunately discarded the numbers after 
I made my choice, so this is based off of memory. With both Reiser4 and 
EXT3, the 4 GB file could be created in about 3.5 minutes, with Reiser4 
being slightly faster. JFS and XFS took anywhere from 4 to 5 minutes to 
create the file, with JFS being slightly faster. EXT3 took about 14 
seconds to delete the file, Reiser4 took about 4 seconds to delete the 
file, and both JFS and XFS took something like 0.2 seconds to delete the 
file.

Despite the timings, I chose EXT3 for several reasons.
1) I'm using LVM, so that I can easily swap in and out hard drives, 
depending on use. All file systems allow you to grow a partition to use 
up the space on a new hard drive, but only EXT3 and Reiser4 allow you to 
shrink a partition, in case I'd want to remove a hard drive.
2) MythTV 0.20 (0.19?) now has a slow-delete feature for EXT3 file 
systems, so that it doesn't lock up the machine for 14 seconds when it 
deletes a file.
3) EXT3 is in more common use than Reiser4 and seems to be more heavily 
supported.

- Mike