Performance Test (Btrfs, ext4, f2fs and xfs) on Linux

In this episode of the CyberGizmo I benchmark the 4 filesystems chosen by Phoronix for his testing and use my own workloads to compare and contrast them.

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Music Used in this video
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

[thoughtfulriderakj]

This is hands down the best coverage of different file systems and their performance with utilities. Thank you for doing this 😊

[abobader]

Thanks DJ for this, was hoping you add as well zfs, again well done.

[zeek]

wow, thank you! This is exactly what I needed to know! Please keep up your good work.

[securerandom]

Thanks DJ. This lines up almost exactly with a similar benchmark I ran several years ago. I do tend to keep / on EXT4 and databases on XFS. I haven't personally come across a situation where that wasn't the best performance for the application.

[JD-imwu]

nice, I use ext4 for my workstation, and exfat for my external. I encrypt the ext4 with luks and the other with veracrypt. Reason y i didnt put too much emphasis in benchmarking is due to the encryption which probably destroys the benchmarks anyway so i just went with compatibility and safety as my 1st priority of choosing my filesystems. i wonder how much of a difference choosing a filesystem makes benchmark wise when ur filesystem is encrypted.

[manuelthallinger]

Using XFS for my System, got many improvements over the past and i really like that the cpu load for IO is much better than with ext4

[hexearth]

This is great work. It will be my reference for people who asks me about file systems and for myself too, as I've always prefered EXT4 or XFS. I will try F2FS just because you have shown it works well. And... Do you have a cold?

[bertnijhof]

I'm already for more than 2 years on ZFS for my desktop. It stopped my file corruption, caused by the frequent power breaks in my country of residence. I link to the zfs btrfs comparison would be usefull :)

[stereomato]

IO scheduler benchmarks would be nice too. Maybe also HDD benchmkars? :D

[lsatenstein]

Good morning from Canada.
I have this thought and question. Did you run fstrim between different tests? I found, (1tb drive), that if fstrim was run before the first test, and not again, the first test would have an advantage. Later the same test done over would likely show to be less performing.

fstrim experience: my 120 gig sata had a filefull error, and gparted showed lots of space). Running sudo fstrim -A returned a very substantial number of available blocks and I was able to nearly fill up the drive before it also balked at being full.

[adamu]

Logically, F2FS is the best choice for SSD and NVME drives, using NAND memories as it is developed by Samsung, I think they know their products very well ... but maybe I am wrong, I am not not an FS specialist ...

[CheapHomeTech]

Watched until the end. Nicely done. I'd like to know a little more why some are best for SSDs despite their average speed in the tests. Then the elephant in the room was missing. How can ZFS be excluded? ZFS seems to be the up and coming replacement for ext4.

[andrewpalm]

Great. I converted my single user desktop machine to Fedora 33 with Btrfs. At least my backup laptop is still Ext4. I haven't noticed a practical difference, so maybe it's OK. But Fedora developers are currently not my favorite people, as I think I"ve been sold an experimental bill of goods I didn't really need. This Fedora change was touted as "for the desktop user, " but my BS meter is pegged out.

[msam]

thanks alot for this
may i ask what is that "worker and concurrent workers" concept means?

[JD-imwu]

so to summarize ZFS is still the king of the hill!

[zaheenjamil]

Do you think any of the results would be significantly different on nvme drives? Also how noticeable is file system performance in day-to-day usage? I currently use F2FS on my nvme drive just because its fast and I don't really need the extra features.

[philipwalters]

I also have the 6700k on my main system - what processor are you looking to upgrade to going forward ?

[Sidicas]

If you do a test in such a way that it is disk hardware bottle necked, you should be including cou usage in every chart.

[lsatenstein]

Hi DJ,
I am home waiting out the corona virus. While so doing, I watched your evalutation of the above file systems.
If possible, could you do the same tests with zfs, and update your graphs?

As I mentioned, Youtube and your videos and those of others help me in a few ways.
a) Technology update,
b) Do and dont do about Linux, bsd desktops and servers.
c) FILE SYSTEMS

Of the videos I watched pertaining to filesystems, my take away is
btrfs should be avoided for desktop systems which have limited-size SSDs
The f2fs file system, ranked below xfs, was designed for nand technology, which includes SSDs and M.2 drives.
The xfs, ext4 and some others, with moderate to heavy use, will shorten SSD life.
COW systems, such as btrfs, zfs, because rewrites are done to new flash-drive memory locations, go a long way to extending SSD life.
The developers of f2fs have explicitly stated that the primary design goal of f2fs was to extend flash memory life, secondary, , to also be performant. From my youtube research, f2fs seems to solve both design requirements. I am wondering about this claim. I thought that the firmware within an SSD or M.2 drive did that for us.
Following my superficial research, I found that f2fs is a great candidate for smartphones, as memory longevity is of primary concern.

Back to your filesystem review. Have you any comments to make about zfs for the desktop? I am testing Ubuntu 2010 with zfs, That zfs version appears to be 8 releases behind openzfs. I did not find it very responsive. If it is the "miracle file system that it is claimed to be, I am hopeful that openzfs can be dual licensed to include gpl2. so that all Linux distros may include it as an installation option.

Have a great day. I always look forward to your videos.

Your Montreal Quebec fan.

[robbs]

This is interesting. F2fs is said to have a massive improvement on ssd's but it looks like its not much different at all.