# experience with ext4 ? **URL:** \ **Category:** SLES Configure-Administer\ **Created:** [September 18, 2018, 4:08pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/experience-with-ext4/32933 "2018-09-18T16:08:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![berndgsflinux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6a8cbe/32.png) [@berndgsflinux](https://forums.suse.com/u/berndgsflinux)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2018, 4:08pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/experience-with-ext4/32933/1 "2018-09-18T16:08:41Z")
Hi, i have to admit … i’m still using ext3. I know it’s ancient, but i never made any bad experience with it and it never disappointed me. For our use cases it’s still fast enough, we don’t need the last percent performance, and we don’t have partitions larger than several TB. I used a little bit reiserfs, i’m happy that i don’t use it anymore. And i made some bad experience with btrfs, so it’s not my choice. I’m thinking of using ext4. I don’t see any real big advantage for us compared to ext3. The only thing i’d like to have would be snapshots, but as i said, i don’t want to use btrfs. Do you have experience with ext4 ? Is it stable ? How does it behave after a crash ? Bernd ---
**Author:** ![Jens-U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d78d45/32.png) [@Jens-U](https://forums.suse.com/u/Jens-U)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2018, 6:00pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/experience-with-ext4/32933/2 "2018-09-18T18:00:29Z")
Hi Bernd, are you talking about “data” file systems or “root fs”? Current recommendation for the former would be XFS - and despite having used Ext4 for a long time, I had switched over and have absolutely no reason to complain (and even noticed a single practical advantage:no “lost+found” in separated /var/lib/mysql no more, so no need to adjust /etc/my.cnf to exclude 😉 ). But you’re asking about ext4 explicitly - I’ve used it for years on quite a number of systems. End-user, server, real hardware, virtual machines on various hypervisors. And I have no problems or disadvantages to report, especially not when comparing to ext3. Regards, J ---
**Author:** ![malcolmlewis](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/forums.suse.com/malcolmlewis/32/11375_2.png) [@malcolmlewis](https://forums.suse.com/u/malcolmlewis)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2018, 5:55pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/experience-with-ext4/32933/3 "2018-09-18T17:55:48Z")
> [@](#): > > On Tue 18 Sep 2018 02:24:01 PM CDT, berndgsflinux wrote: > > Hi, > i have to admit … i’m still using ext3. I know it’s ancient, but i > never made any bad experience with it and it never disappointed me. For > our use cases it’s still fast enough, we don’t need the last percent > performance, and we don’t have partitions larger than several TB. I used > a little bit reiserfs, i’m happy that i don’t use it anymore. And i made > some bad experience with btrfs, so it’s not my choice. > I’m thinking of using ext4. I don’t see any real big advantage for us > compared to ext3. The only thing i’d like to have would be snapshots, > but as i said, i don’t want to use btrfs. Do you have experience with > ext4 ? Is it stable ? How does it behave after a crash ? > > Bernd Hi IMHO use what is comfortable to you… 😉 That being said, perhaps a bit more information on the use case, is this for the operating system or data? SSD, rotating rust, both? Are you on a SLA for recovery? I’m running SSD’s, bfq scheduler and btrfs (no snapshoting)/xfs (for data). There are so many tools available these days to recovery the operating system, SuMA, salt, SUSE Studio Express etc. – Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890) SLES 15 | GNOME Shell 3.26.2 | 4.12.14-25.16-default If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface, please show your appreciation and click on the star below… Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![ab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@ab1](https://forums.suse.com/u/ab1)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2018, 5:56pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/experience-with-ext4/32933/4 "2018-09-18T17:56:15Z")
ext4 should definitely be used over ext3 if only because of the increased speed of the fsck that is forced every so-many days or so-many mounts. If you have never noticed this with ext3 then either your partitions are really small, or you never reboot, or you do not care about boot/mount times, or you have disabled them somehow. I have not seen any issues with ext4 over ext3, but there are plenty of issues with ext3 when compared to ext4, the biggest one for me being the one described above. With that written, I use Btrfs for sytsems, and XFS for larger data volumes when Btrfs is not appropriate (database volumes, virtual machine disk volumes, etc. – Good luck. If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface, show your appreciation and click on the star below. If you want to send me a private message, please let me know in the forum as I do not use the web interface often.