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I've to maintain a production system on debian6 (kernel version 2.6.32). I'd like to use ext4 on a ssd disk (and generally hope to improve performance upgrading from ext3). I can't find any reference about the ext4 state on that kernel/distribution. Thanks in advance.

Fabio Bonfante
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    What do you mean by "performance"? By most metrics, ext2 has the best "performance". In general, journalled filesystems are trading performance for something else. – Bandrami Jan 11 '14 at 14:23
  • I agree "performance" is always difficult to define. Assuming to prefer the features of a journaled filesystem, the choice of ext4 is based (if I remember right) on the support of TRIM command on ssd. – Fabio Bonfante Jan 13 '14 at 08:54

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I don't use debian but if it can help you, RHEL6 (2.6.32 kernel) uses ext4 as the default fs even for the boot partition since 2010, and I never had any issue with it. Not sure you'll get big performances boosts, sure it got some better algorithms and some tweaked functions but it honestly depends on the kind of usage of the disk.

stoned
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  • It's worth mentioning that RedHat 2.6.32 has a bunch of redhat-specific backports from recent kernels, so it can not be compared to Debian's. – SaveTheRbtz Jan 12 '14 at 07:07
  • Backports is the strategy used by debian's stable branch too. See http://backports.debian.org/ . Anyway ext4 is used as the default fs since the beginning of RHEL6's life, and honestly I don't remember kernel updates at least in the last 2 years due to any potential data losses with ext4. – stoned Jan 12 '14 at 10:43
  • By backports I meant porting linux kernel features from recent kernels back to 2.6.32 without breaking API/ABI e.g. new versions of drivers or sometimes new features. – SaveTheRbtz Jan 13 '14 at 00:31
  • Backports aren't meant for new features or drivers, generally. They're only meant to address specific bugs, security and performance issues that are solved in more recent software release. New features and new drivers generally mean new bugs too, that's why they should be avoided and are avoided in most enterprise long support type distroes. – stoned Jan 13 '14 at 07:31
  • Bugfixes are already done by LTS (long term support) kernel maintainers. Backporting new hardware support and features is crucial for Enterprise distros, otherwise for example you would not be able to run RHEL5 on modern hardware at all. Also if RedHat would not backport features from recent kernels it will loose customers. Anyway just look at release notes of RHEL 6.5: https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/6.5_Technical_Notes/kernel.html#RHSA-2013-1645 and look for `has been added` or `support for`. – SaveTheRbtz Jan 13 '14 at 23:09
  • Mmm I'd argue with you about this stuff as its being added in minor releases, that are a little different from the usual updates (and they seem to generate a few compatibility problems as well, like 6.5 did between selinux and my zabbix agents). Also it's a bit of hit and miss about "new" drivers, for example it seems that the early release of rhel7 is missing everal drivers compared to rhel6 (haven't tried it by myself though). So, I'll agree with you, but still in my own limited way. – stoned Jan 14 '14 at 08:50