Comment by bjourne
2 years ago
ReiserFS is the only Linux file system that has lost me data. Back in the day it had performance advantages when dealing with small files. But now I'd be very surprised if ext4 isn't superior to it in every conceivable way.
There's an argument for copy-on-write filesystem options but it's pretty hard to argue there needs to be more than 2 or 3 "traditional" journaling filesystems like maybe ext4 and XFS.
His letter contends that ReiserFS was intended to be more than just a filesystem, and that jibes with what he was saying about it at the time. I think that it was meant to be a queryable database that happened to be good at implementing traditional filesystem semantics, but also optimally useful through some other kind of API.
Only 5-10 years after BeFS.
Can you explain what that means? What are 'traditional filesystem semantics' and how would it be useful through 'some other kind of API'?
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I beg to differ. In 2024 we know that COW is bad regardless of whether we're talking about disk or memory.