[sf-lug] filesystem for a 3TB external USB drive

[Shane Tzen]

On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 2:14 PM, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
> Quoting Josh Greenland (joshuag1 at mindspring.com):
>> I don't know why EXT2 has even been mentioned as a possibility.
> If I recall correctly the context in which a couple of other posters
> mentioned it, it was always either 'ext2/ext3' or in a context making
> likely that the writer meant 'the filesystem that is variously known as
> ext2 or ext3 depending on whether you use it with or without a journal'.

Actually, in the context which it was mentioned, it was supposed to be
used on a 3TB external USB drive to hold backup data.  If you use ext2
in that context, you're essentially daring it to lose your data.  The
whole purpose of backup is to be able to have a reliable copy of your
data.  In the cases where you're going to the backup drive, it's
generally a bad time to find that it needs an fsck before it'll mount,
particularly if it'll be hours/days.  I can't tell you from experience
that I know how long it would take to fsck an 8TB volume, but I can
tell you that if your job depended on getting some piece of data back
in a timely manner, you're going to wish you ran a true journaling fs.