[arch-general] Adding new partition to system from unpartitioned space - any reason to not use ext4?? [Results]

[David C. Rankin]

On 01/07/2010 04:01 PM, arch at nezmer.info wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 07, 2010 at 11:26:05AM -0600, David C. Rankin wrote:
>> Guys,
>>
>> 	This is just a quick request to make sure I don't screw myself playing with new technology. I have a server 5 existing ext3 partitions on a dmraid array with several hundred gig of unpartitioned space. I have created the new partition and I'm about the create the filesystem. With ext4 now available, is there any reason I shouldn't go ahead and create the filesystem as ext4? It will simply be another data partition to supplement /home that was created rather small to begin with.
>>
>> 	Any thoughts or gotchas on using ext4 instead of ext3 for this??
> No. There is no reason not to use ext4. It's a good all-around
> filesystem. Google are in the process of moving from ext2 to ext4.
> 
> Now, give me a reason why you should listen to me?
> 

Guys,

Partitioning is done, Always a bit more fun with dmraid. 

To begin with, I had simply used fdisk and mkfs to create dm-11 (6G) out of unpartitioned space at the end of my extended partition. I had then created a 516G primary partition out of the remaining unpartitioned space which was created as dm-13 also with an ext4 filesys. The whole setup seemed sloppy to have 1/3 third of the array as an extended w/logical partitions and 2/3 of the disk as a big primary, so I thought I would do what I thought looked better and delete the new logical and primary partitions I had created, grow the extended to encompass the entire disk and then re-add new logical partitions with ext4 filesystems instead (one 6G for an encrypted partition and then the remaining 581G as the data partition I wanted to supplement /home.

One issue worth noting -- gparted recommended using 0.4.6-1 until a few bugs get ironed out with 0.5.X so I downloaded a fresh live cd iso and used that. I ran into an issue where gparted froze on the first attempt. My initial preparation resulted in 5 transactions for gparted to execute. gparted completed 2.5 of them and froze creating the 6 G extension which required a power-off hard reset. (always something that will cause your ... to pucker during the middle of writing partitions to disk)

On restart, gparted reported that the 6G partition was of "Unknown type", but other than that the array was perfectly fine. So I set it up to delete/recreate the 6G and create the 581G which completed without any issue. I don't know why gparted caused the system to freeze the first time, but be aware there may be some issues with gparted right now that are being investigated according to the gparted site. The impressive part of the whole endeavor was the fact that gparted handled the power-off hard reset without scattering my entire drive :p

Thanks for all your feedback on the ext4 issue.

-- 
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
Rankin Law Firm, PLLC
510 Ochiltree Street
Nacogdoches, Texas 75961
Telephone: (936) 715-9333
Facsimile: (936) 715-9339
www.rankinlawfirm.com