[mythtv-users] Filesystem Tuning?

[Michael T. Dean]

On 05/24/2011 02:22 PM, Ken Mandelberg wrote:
> Are there any suggestions for ext4 filesystem tuning for performance
> beyond the ext4 defaults. This is for a mythtv media filesystem?
>
> I'm about to replace a noisy Hitachi 2TB drive with a hopefully quieter
> WD20EARS. Usually I just use dd drive to drive, but if its worth
> changing some defaults and do file copies I might do that. The
> filesystem is pretty full, so doing file copies will be slower than the dd.

I highly recommend against doing a dd copy from one drive to another.  
Let the system choose the appropriate way to configure the partitions 
and file system on the hard drive so it aligns with the physical 
geometry and picks up any new, recommended default file system settings 
the developers have enabled.  It looks like Deskstar 7K2000 2TB HDDs 
have a 512B sector size (just guessing which drive you have) and 
WD20EARS has a 4kiB sector size, so chances are your Hitachi partitions 
and file system(s) aren't properly laid out for the WD.

I recommend partitioning (with parted or whatever), then creating a file 
system, then using rsync to copy data from one drive to the next (rsync 
is nice because it has a --progress arg that shows you where it's at in 
the process).

Mike