Converting ext4 to xfs

[Kwan Lowe]

On Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 2:43 AM, Suvayu Ali <fatkasuvayu+linux at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I was wondering if there was any way I could convert an ext4 partition
> into an xfs partition without copying around files onto a separate
> partition and reformatting. The partition in question is my /home on a
> volume group of its own.

I don't have a real answer except perhaps to create a new LVM for XFS
then slowly migrate files from one LVM/fs to the other.  As you fill
space on one, shrink the other filesystem to reclaim those LPs back
into the VG.  It's messy but should work.  AFAIK, there is no in-place
conversion utility as the two filesystems are quite different.

> I realised, lately I have been dealing with very large files quite
> often. Ranging from few hundred megs to a gig or two. So I decided to
> switch to xfs. Do you think its worth the effort?

Curios about this though -- what sort of performance are you seeing
with ext4 vs XFS?  I'm running only a few XFS filesystems but I don't
see a huge performance increase versus ext4.  My workload is typically
small sound files.

> Also since we are talking about my /home here, there will also be small
> conf/settings files along with the large files. Do you think that would
> be disadvantageous somehow? Would it make more sense to shrink my /home
> and have a separate xfs partition in the created space for the large files?
>
> Thanks for any thoughts on this.
>
> --
> Suvayu
>
> Open source is the future. It sets us free.
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