From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Feb 7 14:41:37 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0280B106566B for ; Sun, 7 Feb 2010 14:41:37 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from alex@mailinglist.ahhyes.net) Received: from mail03.syd.optusnet.com.au (mail03.syd.optusnet.com.au [211.29.132.184]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 980F18FC12 for ; Sun, 7 Feb 2010 14:41:36 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [172.16.0.1] (c122-106-16-228.rivrw1.nsw.optusnet.com.au [122.106.16.228]) by mail03.syd.optusnet.com.au (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id o17EfXsv019897 for ; Mon, 8 Feb 2010 01:41:34 +1100 Message-ID: <4B6ED119.2060308@mailinglist.ahhyes.net> Date: Mon, 08 Feb 2010 01:41:29 +1100 From: alex User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (X11/20090817) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: FreeBSD's UFS vs Ext4 X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:41:37 -0000 Hi Guys, Today I reformatted a machine (network server) thats run FreeBSD nonstop for at least the last 3 years and installed linux on it. I have a raid 0 setup with 2 hard disks in the very same machine. Previously, the maximum I could get across my gigabit enabled network was 60MB/s (megabytes) per second sustained transfer rate. Now that the same machine's raid is formatted with ext4, i am easily sustaining 86MB/s. I cant put it down to the operating system kernel, as to the vast difference in performance, i suspect it is simply ext4 thats producing the better results (I have come to this conclusion because no hardware has changed on that machine, only the OS). So can I safely conclude that ext4 is miles ahead of FreeBSD's UFS performance wise? I'd like to see some feedback.. I am by no means a linux troll. In fact I am far from it. I own many FreeBSD tshirts. I see a number of factors putting freebsd behind: * The teams stubbornness with compiler/base tools (wont move away from gcc 4.2.1 because they just cant accept the GPL2) * The teams stubbornness with the base system binutils (which cause mplayer and other multimedia applications not to build, unless a newer version is installed) * NO interest in developing new filesystems (forget ZFS), i am talking about a base filesystem, ext4 blows the socks off UFS. Using such an old compiler must have a performance impact on the OS. I say this because compilers improve over time, they generate better, tighter, more optimized code. The binutils shipped with freebsd is more than 5 years old now. It's not just my personal test that has shown that linux is ahead in numerous areas (performance wise), but the recent phoronix benchmarks that were released when FreeBSD 8 came out, were pretty damning. I'd like to see what the FreeBSD team has to say on this. Alex