The new Ext4 filesystem

FIT FOR THE FUTURE

Article from Issue 79/2007
Author(s):

The newest child in the Ext filesystem family provides better performance and supports bigger filesystems. Are you ready for Ext4?

Linux came of age with the introduction of the Ext2 filesystem, and Ext3 was the first journaling filesystem to make it into the kernel. Through the years, the Ext (Extended) filesystem family has held an important place in Linux, and Ext remains a popular choice for users around the world. But the venerable Ext code base is showing signs of age. Several months ago, developers began to discuss the problem of adding new features to Ext3 while maintaining the stability and compatibility of the code. Meanwhile, several initiatives offered enhancements to the filesystem that were too fundamental to integrate easily but too important to ignore.

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
Print Issues
Digital Issues
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Print Subs
Digisubs
 
TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS
Get it on Google Play

US / Canada

Get it on Google Play

UK / Australia

Related content

  • Encrypting USB Sticks

    How easy is it to lose a USB stick? Why not protect your data just in case the stick falls into unfriendly hands?

    more »
  • Kernel Tips

    Worried about a recent security exploit? Want to take advantage of a new hardware feature? You don’t need to be a Linux expert to patch and compile the Linux kernel. We'll show you how to get started.

    more »
  • Snapper

    Thanks to Btrfs snapshots, Snapper lets you restore a system to a previous state in case of failure.

    more »
  • Admin Workshop: Unix filesystem tree

    Unix systems organize files in a hierarchical filesystem tree. A system of naming conventions defined in the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) helps admins find their way around.

    more »
  • Aufs2

    Add temporary write capability to a read-only device with the stacked filesystem aufs.

    more »
comments powered by Disqus

Visit Our Shop

Trial Subscription

Digital Subscription

Subscribe

Direct Download

Read full article as PDF:

Ext4.pdf  (213.64 kB)

News

Tag Cloud

Administration Community Desktop Events Hardware Linux Linux Pro Magazine Mobile Programming Software Ubuntu Web Development Windows free software open source