Mac OS X to Get Journaling FS 691
overunderunderdone writes "According to eWeek, Apple Computer is planning to introduce a new journaling file system code-named 'Elvis' with the 10.2.2 release. Supposedly it will run on top of HFS+ and will be turned off by default. Though it will cost you 10% to 15% performance penalty the article says it is more extensive than NTFS and is on par with BeOS's 64-bit journaling file system. Not surprising since it is being developed by the same person - Dominic Giampaolo." I've been super impressed by OS X having used it as my primary laptop for the last couple weeks. It really is a great unix box- and this is one of the important missing puzzle pieces.
You can give me a journaling FS (Score:5, Funny)
No, wait. Give me that.
Existing Journaling Systems? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Existing Journaling Systems? (Score:5, Informative)
This seems like an entirely new system, because the BSD type systems do not have journaling, and there is no such system on the forseable horizon.
FreeBSD provides something called softupdates, which do much to alievate the need for a journaling system. And it does this without the performance hit. When FreeBSD 5.0 comes out it will do something called snapshoting, which will bring even more stability (and background fsck) without much of a performance hit. NetBSD provides (I think) a different implementation of softupdates. OpenBSD might too, I don't know.
Which makes me very disappointed that apple chose this route. Softupdates+Snapshots solves the problem without the performance hit. BSD doesn't need no stinking journaling.
Re:Existing Journaling Systems? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Existing Journaling Systems? (Score:5, Funny)
Very astute. It was Windows 98's excellent FAT32 file system that led to its adoption at this and so many other enterprises.
Re:Existing Journaling Systems? (Score:3, Informative)
-sirket
Re:Existing Journaling Systems? (Score:5, Funny)
Unix using a feature with unabbreviated, capitalized words? What is the world coming to?
Re:Existing Journaling Systems? (Score:3)
I suspect the advantage of having it based on HFS+ is at least partly to do with compatibility. At the moment you can install OS X on a UFS partition, but some apps won't play nice. Hopefully 'Elvis' will get around this problem and give users more options.
a bit offtopic, but (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:a bit offtopic, but (Score:5, Informative)
Re:a bit offtopic, but (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:a bit offtopic, but (Score:5, Insightful)
On top of being able to run *most* of the software that Linux will run, OS X also gives you Photoshop, M$ Office and other commercial apps, a bunch of non commercial apps (www.macosxapps.com, most of the old classic apps and Virtual PC which will get just about any Windows app other than games working on the mac.
If there is some linux program that you just can't live without that wont run under OS X, you also have the option to install Linux on your laptop as well.
Re:a bit offtopic, but (Score:5, Interesting)
What was it with the flamebait mods today? I got one for *my* opinion + experience...{shrug}
(/off topic whine off)
On topic:
Excellent to get a JFS on OSX, finally. I let out a "whoo-hooo", but what do you want from a geek. Eh?
The only thing no one has considered/mentioned is that to gain that speed hit back, you'd probably put in a faster scsi drive, right?
Some people might recall that Adaptec has/is/was dropping mac support (boo!) and while I have an ATTO card in my Mac attached to an 18G Cheeta, well, OS9 does quite well on it...OSX does a less than thrilling job {speedwise}.
So far everything seems to point to OSX or its SCSI/ATTO drivers. (bummer)
Insult to injury is:
{oversimplification warning}
From a storagereview.com roundup says, in effect:
IDE ='s write performance (workstation/home use}
SCSI ='s Read performance (server/raid)
Makes sense when you think about it, so it might be a good idea to get an IDE raid card and do a raid 1+0 to minimize or cancel out the speed hit and keep some integrity.
With so many "Good Things (TM)" coming to OSX, the computing world is going to get very interesting, I think.
(/me crosses fingers for Power4 Macs...now THAT would be a PowerMac!)
.
Re:a bit offtopic, but (Score:4, Informative)
huh? Linux has quite a few journaling filing systems, in particular it has the rather fine ReiserFS. In the next kernel series, RFS 4 will be out, which seriously kicks ass from what I've been seeing. In particular it has very high performance, esp for small files. XFS has attributes too.
I am thinking about getting a Laptop with OSX so I was wondering how OXS compares to Linux.
A quick comparison:
But the most important of all, OS X is proprietary and has all the lockin nastyness you'd associate with Windows, Linux is free. Nuff said.
Re:a bit offtopic, but (Score:5, Insightful)
Stupid OS X.
Basing there graphics system off such properietary API as *gasp* OpenGL. And having native support for running that un-portable proprietary Java language, whatever the hell that is.
And using that damned open-source Mach microkernel.
And that stupid open-sourced Darwin unix core.
And that acursed POSIX API (still a work in progress).
And CUPS.
And OpenFirmware.
How dare they rely on such proprietary things as firewire and usb for peripherals. And 802.11b for networking. And optional LDAP authentication. And how dare they invent new, cool, peer-to-peer automatic network configuration protocols (Rendevouz) and then open up the spec and source.
They are practically the devil.
And I love how on every point OS X wins. You agreed that it was easier to use, had better hardware integration, and better software. Plus, I think most of us agree that it's really cool tech and is prettier.
And then you say "Linux is free. Nuff said." as if this clinches it and Linux has won despite losing in every category other than price.
So, hard to use, poorly-integrated OSs with bad software-support beat easy to use, well integrated OSs with good software-support as long as they are free?
Damn that apple and their embracing of open standards.
Justin Dubs
Re:a bit offtopic, but (Score:5, Informative)
10-15% (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:10-15% (Score:5, Informative)
So you can have fun yanking out the power plug of your computer while its doing a write operation without the unpleasant experience on reboot. Most people (as in AOL Grandmas) don't need it but for servers, its a must. This will help beef up Mac OS X Server against Linux.
Re:10-15% (Score:5, Funny)
I think this will also benefit the AOL Grandma crowd. Can you imagine their reaction upon booting up with a dirty partition and having to go into single-user mode and repair a filesystem?
Re:10-15% (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it should be turned on by default with advanced users, such as video editing pros, being the ones to turn it off.
Why AOL Grandmas need journaling (Score:4, Informative)
I know of one AOL Grandma who has only one troubleshooting strategy: she power cycles her iMac whenever she has a computer problem.
Doug Moen
Re:10-15% (Score:5, Informative)
There is a cost, however. Journaling filesystems are slower than non-journaling because all file metadata update operations have to be written to a transaction log. This makes journaling a poor choice for some high-volume filesystems in scientific computing or other arenas where performance is uttermost (games). In most cases, however, the performance penalty is worth the added integrity.
Note that journaling your filesystem only keeps the metadata intact, not the file data itself. You can still loose data, such as the contents of a document you were editing but had not saved. For full transactional integrity you need the cost and overhead of a transactional database (SQLServer, Postgres, DB2, Oracle, etc.).
Re:10-15% (Score:5, Informative)
That depends on which journaling filesystem you use, and, sometimes, which mode you use it in.
For example, the Linux ext3 file system supports three different journaling modes: "journal", "ordered" and "writeback".
From the "mount" man page:
journal All data is committed into the journal prior to being
written into the main file system.
ordered This is the default mode. All data is forced directly
out to the main file system prior to its metadata being
committed to the journal.
writeback Data ordering is not preserved - data may be written into
the main file system after its metadata has been commit-
ted to the journal. This is rumoured to be the highest-
throughput option. It guarantees internal file system
integrity, however it can allow old data to appear in
files after a crash and journal recovery.
"You can still loose data, such as the contents of a document you were editing but had not saved".
Well unless you've got some special sort of memory, you're going to lose everything you (or the application) haven't saved, whatever type of file system you use.
Re:10-15% (Score:5, Informative)
Re:10-15% (Score:5, Informative)
Re:10-15% (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:10-15% (Score:5, Informative)
Journaling means that if your system isn't shut down cleanly, it won't take forever to fsck your disk the next time you start up. The journal will contain all the information the system needs to get the system into a consistent state after an unclean shutdown. In addition, if the system journals all data instead of just metadata (as most journaling systems seem to do) it will prevent data loss, too.
Also bear in mind that it won't cost you 10-15% of your system resources; it will slow down disk operations by 10-15%, which is a much smaller penalty. If you aren't doing really disk intensive stuff, you probably won't even notice the slowdown. If you are doing lots of disk intensive activities, you'll probably like the fact that you're less likely to be hosed if your system crashes in the middle of one.
Re:10-15% (Score:5, Informative)
In comparison, that same box using ext3, a journaling filesystem, takes a second or two to recover since it is not dependant on the size of the drives, but the (small) size of the journal (except if your drive hardware fails).
Also, journaling helps with data integrity in cases of failure as well, so you don't get files filled with garbage at the end.
If they are using anything close to BeOS's filesystem, use it. That was by far the best filesystem I have ever seen. Beautiful.
Re:10-15% (Score:4, Insightful)
If the power goes out between when the data was written, and when the tables were updated, the data is effectively lost, as the system will only know about the fact that data was written to 5200 and 5201.
Journaling has several implementations, however one of the most common is to log what data is being written to the hard disk, then when all the tables are updated, flushing that information out of the journal.
If the power fails, the system opens the journal file, and starts the process of writing the data in the journal file to the hard disk again.
Why might this be worth a 10-15%? This will be different for different users, but a fairly simple (if contrived) example is if you are running a commercial web site. If I decide to purchase 1000 units of roduct XXZ from your web site, without knowing that a thunder storm is moving through your community, I place my order, get a confirmation number back, and think all is well. Unbeknownst to me, your web server dies after generating the confirmation, while writing the record to the hard disk.
If my purchase is important to your business, say for example the money has been handled as part of the confirmation, and I would not be happy about you not shipping the product I paid for, you might think it worth a 10-15% performance penalty to insure that my purchase gets recorded properly when your power comes back up.
At the same time, if you spend your time on the computer reading slashdot, playing Everquest, and crunching DES keys, perhaps journaling isn't worth the 10-15% hit.
I may be wrong here as well, but I believe the 10-15% hit being reported is for disk intensive transactions, not for processor performance.
Then again, I could be wrong.
-Rusty
How it works... (Score:5, Informative)
Imagine that you have a library, and a librarian is filing away new books. When she is done filing them, she puts entries into the card catalog downstairs for the new books. The card catalog represents a filesystem's metadata.
Now imagine that the librarian falls out of a 2nd story window into a dumpster and is carted away before she finishes filing the books and updating the catalog. You have no idea what books were filed; you have to perform an exhaustive search of the library to ensure that the card catalog is correct, which takes a long time. This was fsck before journaling.
Servers with large amounts of disk space cannot afford extensive fsck times after a crash. It can take hours.
Now imagine that the librarian keeps a small notepad of the books that she is filing, and when she meets her sticky end, the new librarian can read the notepad, check and verify the new entries, then update the card catalog to a consistent state. We assume that the notepad is updated before the book is filed, so if we have an incomplete notepad entry, the librarian died and the entry can be disregarded. The notepad corresponds to the journal in a journaling file system.
It takes time to write a journal, so journaling filesystems will always be at least a little slower than non-journaling equivalents, design improvements aside.
Most journaling filesystems will only guard the card catalog (metadata). Some, such as VxFS and ext3, can also be made to journal the books (data), but performance goes down because so much more goes through the log.
Another feature to look for in journaling filesystems is dynamic inode creation. ext3 does not have this feature - you can only have so many card catalog entries, and when you exceed them, you can't add any more new books. XFS, for example, can create new inodes on the fly as long as you have disk space.
For Sun people, it is always a surprise to find that Sun's UFS does journaling (you don't have to buy Veritas VxFS), but you have to turn it on with an option in /etc/vfstab.
Re:10-15% (Score:3, Informative)
If you go through the documentation for the various journaling filesystems, XFS, ext3, jfs, Reiser (sp?) others, you will find that each implementation takes a different tactic when it decides what gets journaled, and what does not.
A document you are editing, is almost never journaled, unless it is happening as part of a background save process, or as part of you saving the document to disk specifically.
Then again, I have been wrong before.
-Rusty
Re:10-15% (Score:3, Informative)
They're not as contradictory as you think. Almost all journaling systems journal metadata only, so they only protect the integrity of the filesystem, not the actual data. There are a few systems that actually journal everything, providing protection of the actual data as well as the filesystem integrity, but most ordinary users aren't likely to use them.
As I understand it, full data journaling is not really practical for most user applications. If you journal to the same physical device that the main filesystem is on, there's a big performance penalty because you essentially have to write everything twice. That obviously isn't efficient, and you can still lose your data if the system crashes while you're writing it to the journal. Full data journaling only makes sense if you have another device to use as the journal- say a small but blazingly fast SCSI disk or some kind of nonvolatile RAM. That's not something that most users are going to do, but it would make sense in an enterprise environment.
The more I read/hear... (Score:5, Interesting)
The OS was unforgiving with incompatable hardware, and there just was NO configuration.
But now, I'm dying to try it again.
Any one got a spare system sitting around that I could try for a week or two.
Just another reason... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Just another reason... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Just another reason... (Score:5, Insightful)
Although I will say that I've only had it happen once and it was pretty much my fault (and it wasn't in OS X, either.). More than I can say for FAT16/FAT32.
Re:Just another reason... (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, you guessed it... B-tree was basically spaghetti: reformat and reinstall time. I've seen it happen a few times before: the most spectacular being a crash during a defrag. Basically, nothing pointed to the right file: all the icons were there, but the info in them was basically noise.
Re:Just another reason... (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the nice things about Macs (old school at least) is that I could just boot from a CD and copy everything on the HDD (minus the bad file) to the server, format the drive, and copy it all back. Good as new
HFS and HFS+ have serious file corruption issues that most people don't ever see because they don't use their computer for more than web serfing and email. When you get into a business environment and really go at it full speed, the file system chokes. It's slow, resource heavy, and prone to file damage. It's a regular occurance on my 20+ PowerMacs to have to boot from a Norton CD and "Disk Doctor" the file system just to get them to boot from their hard drive.
~LoudMusic
Re:Just another reason... (Score:4, Informative)
I use my tiBook as my unix dev server for our server platform. though, we deploy onto unix, I can do 99.9% of the operations on my tiBook and as I work 50% from my home office, it's a perfect fit.. I always have my dev server with me.
I have managed thus far to achieve a few crashes, mainly due to a resource leak with file handles and also a strange bug in Java. I have had my software crash litterally thousands of times in development cycles. I have had to hard-reset because of a hard lock w/the quartz engine....
Anyway, I -abuse- this laptop (which I am typing on right now). It's has been an absolute champ. I haven't had anything go corrupt, and never had an error i couldn't recover from.
Note, that I did re-partition my drive and stuck
My G4 tower (466) has been a mysql and pgsql database server and a host of my personal webserver for almost 2 years now. It survived moving over-seas twice and my abusive MP3 harvesting tools to newsgroups *gasp, I know*.
Anyway, to say that a 'real user' will experience problems is utter bullshit. I don't know what's going on with your stations but we have 5 people on the team using G4's (some laptop+tower) and we never have problems.
Re:Just another reason... (Score:4, Funny)
Apple commercial: "I wanted to do video editing and no one could help me to do it on a PC". What a fucking moron. If you can't use a search engine, what makes you think you could edit video? For God's sake, you can buy a PC with a firewire card and some cheap editing software and BAM! you can bring your video right in.
I understand that OS X is great for us geeks, but pulease stop bringing up the commercial that HAS to be targeted at AOL users and other internet bottom feeders.
Disclaimer: i DO like macs.
Re:Just another reason... (Score:3, Funny)
And Slashdotters are top of the food chain? :) Actually there are several sysadmins that are apart of the Switch campaign. Not all of them are teenaged girls [ellenfeiss.net] with their brains nuked out on Nyquil [apple.com].
Disclaimer: i DO like macs.
Sure you do. Sure you do. If you really liked Macs, you would never, ever diss the marketing department built by Steve Jobs. Admit it! You are just a paid consultant from the Microsoft Marketing department astroturfing Slashdot. [slashdot.org] So which stock photo do you use? :P
Re:Just another reason... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it possable that they know this. But can't be fucked spending hours on the web looking for good advice and trying to decide who's right, downloading/buying different software to see which on is the best package, discovering that the new video editing card they bought conficts with their motherboard?
This person is a fucking moron because they didn't want possability of having to go through this?
BTW. Saying that someone who isn't good with the internet would also have no clue with video editing, is just plain ignorant and false.
I wanna see CmdrTaco on TV (Score:5, Interesting)
A huge fraction of technical (and high-spending) PC users who might switch know exactly what Slashdot is.
It would be awesome: "... I'm Rob Malda, and I run Slashdot.org"
Re:I wanna see CmdrTaco on TV (Score:5, Funny)
tee hee
Thisis 100% PURE rumor (Score:5, Informative)
the writer of the eWeek article is Nick De Plumme (or something) - he's the guy from ThinkSecret....
hardly a "journalistic" website.
Re:Thisis 100% PURE rumor (Score:5, Informative)
Remember a few months ago when several web publishers lost their Press Credentials to MacWorld for publishing Rumors? "Nick dePlume" was one of them. Matthew Rothenburg wrote an editorial entitled "Let My People Go" (or something like that) saying that these so-called "rumor" sites should be allowed the same privileges as the "real" press. Since then he's been co-writing articles every now and then with dePlume (that's a pen name, who knows that the guy's real name). I think that it's to try and lend some credibility to Think Secret and dePlume.
Of course, this is pure speculation and all. who knows. haha
Regardless of the truth, Rothenburg's "association" with Think Secret has basically caused me to lose respect for him.
Re:Thisis 100% PURE rumor (Score:5, Interesting)
James,
Actually, I wrote that "rumor and speculation" was a silly yardstick for Apple to apply to press access, since all the mainstream press sources that cover Apple (present company included) happily employ both:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,338330,00.a sp
I also said that Apple has a right (and a need) to establish a method for differentiating between the press and enthusiasts when it comes to allocating press badges. However, applying this particular measure to the small fry and not the big fish smacks of intimidation.
Press access is a privilege that Apple can extend or withhold, but if they're not going to apply it fairly or consistently, I reserve the right to call them on it.
Matthew Rothenberg
Online editor
Ziff Davis Media
Re:Thisis 100% PURE rumor (Score:5, Informative)
We made it very clear that we're working from sources, and that the release of this information has not been sanctioned.
Of course, I stand behind it completely, and I recommend that you check out our track record for accuracy when reporting unannounced Mac news on eWEEK: The end of Mac OS 9 booting and the rise of IBM's 64-bit PowerPC are just two recent examples of stories we nailed to the wall in advance of the official PR.
It's not my place to speak for Think Secret, but Mac stories we put on eWEEK adhere strictly to a three-source rule (and always make a point of offering Apple an opportunity to respond, not that the company often avails itself of the chance). While we'd never burn a source, we make it absolutely clear what's official writ and what's unreleased insider information. This falls into the latter camp, but that doesn't detract a bit from its authenticity.
Check back with me in a month, gsfprez, and we can talk about whether or not this story has legs. :-)
Matthew Rothenberg
Online editor
Ziff Davis Media
Re:Thisis 100% PURE rumor (Score:5, Interesting)
while it may have legs or not - that doesn't change the fact that it is, in fact, rumor - and not solid facts coming from the 1 Infinite Loop Compound.
Therefore, it doesn't change the fact that the
"Apple: Mac OS X rumored to get a JFS in 10.2.2" - which is what your report is - would be far more acurate, and acceptable of a title.
It also doesn't help to involve yourself with someone who is only slightly more accurate than Ryan Meader. While nothing is as bad as MacOS Rumors - which is only slightly less accurate than CrazyAppleRumors, you might do well to re-examine the useless Ryan Meader-esque drivvel Think Secret has given us in the past...
- the amazing iPad - which was such an amazingly horrid case of egg-face that they've deleted every possible history of it on their site
- G5s since may of 1999(http://www.thinksecret.com/archives/0599.htm
- Mac OS Lite on a Palm-like device since june of 1999
(http://www.thinksecret.com/archives/0699.h
I could go on... but i think that my basic point is that if you're going to lecture people on sexual harassment, you don't have Bill Clinton co-write the material with you - it diminishes your credibility, regardless.
i do give marks to eWeek for their news on the Mac - its fairly unbiased compared to other tech news outlets like c|net - and i do note that the actual article at your website does clarify clearly that this is, indeed, rumor, and not Apple Computer making an announcement.
so - while it seemed like a slam on you and eWeek, it was more of a slam on
About that performance hit ... (Score:5, Interesting)
is with or without journal on a separate disk.
I'm surprised no one has brought this up yet.
Re:About that performance hit ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:About that performance hit ... (Score:3, Insightful)
more than just a pretty face (Score:5, Insightful)
Can this be rolled back into the BSDs? (Score:3, Interesting)
But, having cut my eye teeth on SunOS 4.1.3, I still have a hankering for the old rc files, and the general Berkeleyness of the BSDs. Will Apple be good enough to help roll a decent journaling file system back into the BDSs, so I can return to my blissfil Berkely rc days, and not worry about the cleaning lady pulling out my RAID power outlet to use the vacuum cleaner?
Re:Can this be rolled back into the BSDs? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Can this be rolled back into the BSDs? (Score:5, Funny)
Nazi SYS5 init architect:
Mein Furher! Ve needen maken startup of system harrrrrder to administrrrrate. Ist too eazy now. Even girly non-blue eyed non-Aryans can administrate serrrrvers now.
SVR4 Nazi Furher:
Ja wohl!!! How can we skrrrrrrew de administrrrrators?
Nazi SYS5 init architect:
split ze starrrrtup scripts, makingkt dem more komplicated.
Umm, I don't think that happened. I find SVR4 style easier. Every service in it's own seperate file. Ever try to start a system server on BSD by hand? It's harder than you think. In SV$ land, I can take any server down by running a kill script and restart it by running its startup script. hell, even FreeBSD has a SVR4 style init directory (granted, only for a single run level now). And if it's all that hard, just make
Hmm, Berkeleyness of Berkeley software, who knew?
FreeBSD (maybe all {Free,Net,Open}BSDs) uses SoftUpdates, which in some ways is better than journalling [cmu.edu], depending on what you want.
so when you unmount... (Score:5, Funny)
System Error (Score:5, Funny)
Re:so when you unmount... (Score:4, Funny)
But will it Blog? (Score:5, Funny)
A new and cool feature would be a file system that maintained a Weblog...
Today I stored my user's tax return...what a piece of crap...he actually expects the IRS to believe that he donated 40,000 to the MDA?...I think I'll just switch a few numbers around and drop a hint to the audit hotline
Yeah, that could be good...where's the SourceForge project for this?
Questions for CmdrTaco... (Score:3, Interesting)
And will you be writing a review of OSX and Apple laptops in the near future?
Re:Questions for CmdrTaco... (Score:4, Insightful)
DG did some _astounding_ work on BFS (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, the really big question for me is... Is this considered part of Darwin, and as such, will it be OSS?
Re:DG did some _astounding_ work on BFS (Score:4, Funny)
I Switched.. (Score:5, Funny)
.. from stinky Mac OS 10.2.2 and its 10-15% slower journaling file system to WindowsXP.
[insert stock photo of hot chick here]
I'm a 32 year old marketing director and demand the ultimate in performance without sacrificing robustness and file system safety. Only Microsoft can bring you the features you need with the performance required for your very important day-to-day work
FYI -- This isn't meant for you (Score:3, Informative)
This change is meant for people who are using OS X on *servers*... possibly even (gasp!) headless servers! I'm currently running a webserver & IMAP mail server off of an OS X box, and I never actually pull up the GUI on it (why would I need to?). But I'd love to have the added assurance of JFS on it. This is the market that Elvis is meant for.
Apple is trying to edge their way into the low-end server market, which is already over-crowded. Putting this feature into their OS, even though it's turned off by default, is a big feature difference for the XServe-purchasing crowd.
So, unless you're really nervous about losing your porn, your desktop machine doesn't need this.
--Mid
Umm... no. (Score:5, Informative)
Thats a 15% hit in disk performance, not system performance.
Quite to the contrary (Score:5, Interesting)
On servers, despite its popularity, journaling makes much less sense: there are better ways to recover from failures, and the performance hit really does matter.
Answer unclear, ask again. (Score:5, Funny)
Do I see an Apple "switcher" ad featuring CmdrTaco in the near future?
Re:Answer unclear, ask again. (Score:4, Interesting)
Not only that, but it'd be a few more bucks in Taco's pocket for being in the ad
Oh nos! CmdrTaco a SWITCHER!? (Score:4, Funny)
We are all doomed! Once you go Mac, you never go back!
Next he'll be dressing up in black, sporting a goatee, and drinking pretentious coffee drinks...
Like him [penny-arcade.com]!
Cross Platform FS (Mac/Linux/?) (Score:3, Insightful)
just my carrot for the button soup.
We need better tech writers (Score:4, Informative)
Better than NTFS how? (Score:4, Interesting)
NTFS supports DACLs (Discretionary Access Control Lists. Grant rights specifically on files, folders, or both for any specific combination of rights. Yes, even includes things like execute, though most users don't get THAT granular.) It also supports Auditing via an ACL-like mechanism. Wanna see if user sally01 read file X? Add her with READ to the audit list. Who is renaming files in c:\docs? add Everyone with rename/modify to the Audit list.
NTFS does quotas, junction points (links), and reparse points. Reparse points allow things like EFS to work without the app being aware of it. If I wanted to replace the word "microsoft" with BORK BORK BORK on the disk, I could write a parsing driver and install it. Then, any file with my driver's signature in its reparse point list would be handed off to my driver for processing before being saved to disk or read from disk to an application.
There are plenty of other features as well, but the point is that to be a better filesystem than NTFS would take a huge amount of work on the filesystem itself, plus getting the OS to support it. However it is relatively easy to attack a specific point of NTFS (its journaling) and make your filesystem do that specific thing better.
Re:10 - 15% ?! (Score:5, Insightful)
This refers to hard disk access time penalties, not an overall 10-15% reduction in the performance of your computer. You wouldn't notice the difference.
Swap Partition HOWTO (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Swap performance (Score:3, Informative)
OS X isn't like Linux in that respect. The swap file resides on the main partition.
Re:10 - 15% ?! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:10 - 15% ?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Just looking at how OS X itself has progressed in speed from Public Beta (slug with brick tied to it), to 10.0 (slug), to 10.1 (average lazy human), to 10.2 (average lazy human drinking strong coffee), I expect that by 10.3 this technology will not give nearly such a performance hit.
And heck. Don't like the speed hit? Turn it off.
Re:10 - 15% ?! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:10 - 15% ?! (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sorry to nitpick, but you're talking about the PowerPC 970. (AKA GPUL) The newly announced chip is not the same as the POWER4. They share some architectural aspects, like the instruction set, but they're not the same.
Again, sorry for nitpicking. It's just that this is a really confusing matter, what with the POWER4 chip and the POWER architecture and the Amazon architecture and the PowerPC architecture and the PowerPC chips and... so on.
Re:Disk Space. (Score:5, Interesting)
I use FAT32.
The diskspace used by the journal file in NTFS and this new filesystem can be put to much better use.
Ya, like all of the fucking backups you need to keep your data safe. On that 80Gig disk, no less.
Fuck
All
There
is what we used to call the FAT filesystem, and for good reason. No security, no recovery. You work for Peter Norton, any chance?
Get a clue, bud - journaling file systems were integrated with _all_ modern OSes for a reason. Namely, big gain, near zero cost.
Soko
Re:Disk Space. (Score:4, Informative)
You mean like empty cluster tips?
NTFS might use a good amount of space, but you make up for allot of that just based on the smaller cluster sizes. Take a large directory (20,000+ files, 10GB+), put it on a Win2k machine with NTFS, then another with FAT32. Right click -> properties. Size on Disk says it all.
I am too, however... (Score:4, Interesting)
That being said I'll try it but hopefully there will be a way to disable it as well.
Yeah.. but.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I am too, however... (Score:5, Insightful)
As for disabling it, read the article. It's not even on until you get into Terminal and turn it on.
Re:I am too, however... (Score:5, Insightful)
thread by posting...
> If it takes a 10-15% performace hit that is significant on
> older hardware.
That explains why it's switched off by default, I expect. Some
people in some situations will be glad to take a 15% performance
hit for the benefits of journaling, _if_ the journaling is of the
level of quality that is claimed (i.e., as good as in BFS). The
article says (at the end) that Apple wouldn't comment, so they
may still be weighing that, as well as the performance issue.
IMO, it's good for them to give people the option. If nobody
turns it on, there's no real downside. If some people _do_ see
fit to turn it on, presumably that's because they value it.
Re:I should hope so (Score:3, Insightful)
The high-end TiBook is $3,799.00 [apple.com] without any extras. The middle-of-the-road one is $3,199.00 [apple.com].
If you had mentioned the fact that you were quoting prices in Canadian dollars, you could have avoided this correction. Of course, if your purpose was to artificially inflate prices, you should have looked at the Australian store, where a top-end PowerBook goes for a whopping $8,745.00 [apple.com].
Re:Apple == Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether or not they'd be like this if they were in a monopoly position is up to debate, but Apple is currently a far less evil company than Microsoft. Instead of putting roadblocks up for me, the Mac makes most things I want to do far easier.
Re:Apple == Microsoft (Score:4, Funny)
Blockquoth the poster:
When Apple has retaken 95% of the market and starts using its 100 MWatt master Airport transmitters to force-download 3 GB trailers for 'Toy Story 5' onto my desktop, then I'll worry...
Apple != Microsoft (Score:4, Informative)
Oops, they have [apple.com]!
Well, we all know Apple's just "embracing and extending", they don't ever submit any of their extensions to the IETF and release that code, right?
wrong [apple.com], and wrong again [apple.com]!
Re:Apple != Microsoft (Score:3, Interesting)
Ups, and Darwin isn't supporting my hardware, damn. But then again Darwin itself is just as usable as DOS prompt from desktop view.
Re:Apple == Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
Computers, and the information they hold and route, that we are all so addicted to, are just toys. Computers are the ultimate distraction by which we, as a culture, impress ourselves with how clever we are. All the while, the quality of our lives becomes increasingly dominated by ones and zeros that don't really exist.
Think about it and tell me, how many hours of your life are spent in front of a computer that runs Free Software or not (it does not matter), *really* making the world a better place? How much of your self-worth is invested in the software you use or write, the games you play, the mp3 collection you build?
If your computer blew up today, how much of a life would you have?
Now tell me who is enslaved and who is free.
Re:Apple == Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
Gimmie a break. There's another kind of freedom: the freedom to get shit done without having to wrestle with the operating system. Remember that when you think about OSX. No slaves here, just someone getting the job done.
Re:Apple == Microsoft (Score:3, Funny)
America can, should, must, and will install Linux to protect our freedom. We must destroy the terrorism that is Mac OS X.
Onward, GNU soldiers! We cry freedom from coherent, mature GUIs! Freedom from packaging systems that work! Freedom from mature, accountable developers!
And if you consider for one moment "switching" to one of those evil, repugnant, proprietary systems, just Think of the Children, and pray that Stallman will give you strength in your time of weakness. Now we crush the infidels!
Re:why not XFS? and... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) XFS is GPLed code, which is incompatible with the Apple Public Source License, and which Apple has a policy of not including with their core OS. While it might be possible for a third party to port XFS to OSX as an external module, Apple will never ship it as a default. Also, XFS lacks support for extended file attributes that the MacOS depends on.
2) Per the article, this is a layer on top of the existing HFS+ filesystem. Assuming that the article is correct, existing applications will continue to work as they always have.
Re:Case sensitive (Score:4, Informative)
Then... use one. You can create and mount UFS filesystems with OS X. You can even install the OS on a UFS filesystem, but legacy software often depends on features of HFS/HFS+. So if you don't have any legacy apps, you can run an entire OS X system on UFS.
Re:Honest question (Score:3, Insightful)
Furthermore, yes, software does rely on it. Even just untarring a UNIX archive on OS X can break it, like if it contains "Makefile" and "makefile".
Re:Great a new feature... (Score:3, Insightful)
You are not quite correct. This will cost $19.95. When they bring back the speed then it will cost $129.
I've skipped the last one and will probably upgrade latter on when I seen a reason to.
It rurns out that... (Score:5, Insightful)