Hi Bob!

On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:55:41 -0700
 Bob Barton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I am setting up a 2 TB file system to use for AFS volumes
> on an AFS file server and I am wondering which file
> system I should use - XFS or ext3. I plan to use
> Scientific Linux 5.1 or 5.2 x86_64 as the operating
> system on the file server machine.
> Suggestions, comments and recommendations are very
> welcome.
Assuming that you use LVM anyway, I would recommend xfs.
It is said to be slightly faster than ext3 (I have not
tested this by myself), it can take more directories,
which in the case of AFS is not important and - the main
point - you can modify the size of the filesystem
with # xfs_growfs while xfs is mounted! 
E.g. if you want to add disks to your RAID ...
I have very good experience extending LVM and xfs
whithout stopping the service. 
Please keep in mind that you cannot extend an xfs
while it is 100.00% full. At least some blocks
must be free :-)  

Cheers

Anton J. Gamel

HPC und GRID-Computing
Physikalisches Institut
Abteilung Professor Herten

c/o Rechenzentrum der Universität Freiburg
Arbeitsgruppe Dr. Winterer
Hermann-Herder-Straße 10
79104 Freiburg

Tel.: ++49 (0)761 203 -4672

--
Es bleibt immer ein Rest - und ein Rest vom Rest.