Which filesystem for SSD in F10?

[Steve Snyder]

Shortly after it's released, I'll be doing a clean install of Fedora 10 
on a solid-state disk (SSD).  This disk will contain all but the /home 
directory structure.

Is there an optimal (and F10-supported) filesystem for use on SSDs, or 
should I just opt for the default?

Thanks.

[Steve Snyder]

On Monday 17 November 2008 10:16:47 am Alan Cox wrote:
>  > There are many Linux flash filesystems, but Fedora does not
> support
>  > any of them.
>
>  If you are using an ATA, CFA or SCSI attached solid state disk then
>  that aspect of file systems is really irrelevant. Raw flash devices
>  require management by the OS via things such as JFFS. ATA flash
>  manages such matters internally and all wear levelling is really down
>  to the drives which use various differing algorithms of differing
>  quality (in part because everyone has patents on their own
>  algorithm). 
[snip]

FYI, this SSD has a SATA interface.  The OS (and even the BIOS) is 
unaware that there is no spinning media.

I wasn't really thinking of flash wear-leveling as the drive's firmware 
takes care of that.  What I really had in mind was I/O efficiency, the 
use of algorithms that are particularly suited (or at least not 
particularly unsuited) to solid-state media.

Thanks for the response.

[Alan Cox]

>  There are many Linux flash filesystems, but Fedora does not support
> any 
>  of them. 
If you are using an ATA, CFA or SCSI attached solid state disk then that
aspect of file systems is really irrelevant. Raw flash devices require
management by the OS via things such as JFFS. ATA flash manages such
matters internally and all wear levelling is really down to the drives
which use various differing algorithms of differing quality (in
part because everyone has patents on their own algorithm).

>  Personally, I'd take XFS and set the "noatime" mount
> option. XFS caches  
noatime is a good idea but other than that I would expect similar results
on any journalled file system. If you will be doing backups or using mail
clients with local storage, or anything else relying on atime then
'relatime' will give much of the same reduction in I/O but keep these
things working sanely.

[Michael Cronenworth]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Which filesystem for SSD in F10?
From: Steve Snyder <swsnyder(a)snydernet.net&gt;
To: Fedora Mailing List <fedora-list(a)redhat.com&gt;
Date: 11/17/2008 06:32 AM

>  Shortly after it's released, I'll be doing a clean install of
> Fedora 10 
>  on a solid-state disk (SSD).  This disk will contain all but the /home 
>  directory structure.
>  
>  Is there an optimal (and F10-supported) filesystem for use on SSDs, or 
>  should I just opt for the default?
>  
>  Thanks.
>   
There are many Linux flash filesystems, but Fedora does not support any 
of them.

You're stuck with EXT2/3/4, XFS, ReiserFS, or JFS.

Personally, I'd take XFS and set the "noatime" mount option. XFS caches 
metadata and file data until it is ready to commit, in the least 
obtrusive way. Setting "noatime" will stop Linux from setting the access 
time on every file when its accessed. This will help SSD life. Remember 
though, it's just my personal opinion. You could get the same through 
EXT2/3/4. EXT4 is similar to XFS from what I've read, but it is a brand 
new file system. XFS has had a decade of use (not all good though, I'll 
admit).