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[magius]

I know you guys had a lot of issues with Ext3, reason why it was taken out...

However, using Ext2 only is kind of risky, even when using it in a mirror setup.

Are you guys planning to re-implement Ext3 journaling into the 323 in the near future?

[Rara Avis]

I couldn't tell you why it was taken out, or the when/ifs of when it will be back, however I do take a bit of exception to your statement that EXT2 is a risk.

How do you figure?

Beyond that even the comment about mirroring, which would not assist with losses due to an "risky" file system (as it would just be mirrored across [mirroring is to address physical failure not logical failure]) which EXT2 is certainly not.

[magius]

You know, I was about to reply because I certainly didn't mean to offend anyones sensibilities. However, you take exception to what I said but don't delve why you don't consider Ext2 to be risky. I am not a Linux filesystem expert, however I do know that Ext3 adds up journaling (among a nice list of features) to Ext2. That would make it a safer choice, no?

Maybe risky was too strong a word, but nothing to get that bothered about. Lol.

[DRT-1000]

wiki.....hmmm Looks like they are pretty comparable except for

    * A journal
    * Tree-based directory indices for directories spanning multiple blocks
    * Online file system growth

Which to me would sound....well less risky 

However, that does not mean ext2 is risky....but who cares 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems


well....i duno. I'm not a Linux guy. ok enough wiki, getting into metadata and dynamic journals and ext4 and omg make it stop, flow of information too large.

/e clicks stumble, ahhhh much better.

[Rara Avis]

Sorry if I responded to harshly, I am used to dealing with comparisons of EXTx and FAT or other such ridiculous comparisons.

I apologize if I did not back up my point, in my mind that was because you didn't back up yours so I was "fighting fire with fire", always a bad idea.  Additionally I was trying to get an idea of the level of complaint (I get anywhere from "I can't put it in my windows machine so it's a risk" to much deeper discussions on the what and why of the journal).

I might also add that I love debate and am a devil's advocate of sorts.

Yes the journal is a "Good Thing" ™

However the purpose of the journal is to speed up recovery from a crash situation, you are trading a small amount of space and performance (at all times) for a large speed boot on boot.  Under most circumstances the only thing you are risking is about 20 minutes after a crash.

Tree-based directory indices for directories spanning multiple blocks, this one I would want to ask the author of the Wiki what they meant as it isn't clear, I know I have added a journal to EXT2 partitions making them EXT3 partitions (and visa versa) many times and I have never had to mess with directory indices , it is possible I just don't know better but I would want a better explanation.

Online file system growth was available for EXT2 as well, it just never because vogue.  More importantly thats not gonna be an option with this device anyhow.

In short I apologize, and always look for collaborating sources on Wiki cause at least one of their points was just plain false.  For my supporting documents on the online resize point see the link below, it is the project to add EXT2 resize ability.

http://ext2resize.sourceforge.net/online.html

[magius]

Hey not offended in the very least here. 

Those are great links! Thanks for the info!

Well, I indeed was harsh at calling Ext2 "risky" lol, maybe hoping I would get a reaction from the DLink guys. 

I guess the main reason I posted this thread was that I am worried about a power failure causing massive/some disk corruption. While I don't consider myself a Linux expert (aka. knowing the intricacies of the kernel and the such) nonetheless I have had the pleasure of trying to help some "Uh oh this Linux system didn't shut down properly" workstations. While not as bad as, say, an older Sun workstation (death at power failure), they seemed to be somewhat particular on how they were shut down.

And that is why I asked about the Ext3 file system on the 323.

It's my turn to apologize for not being clearer on the first post.

[mig]

I think a journaling file system is a MUST have feature for any robust NAS device.

D-link has implemented a VERY clever design where system and configuration files are
stored in flash RAM and "practically" immune to data corruption.  In the event of system
crash or power failure, the critical system files will be restored from flash on the next system
startup.  Brilliant!

But your data..., stored on a ext2 file system and coupled with no UPS capability, is unnecessarily
vulnerable to data corruption following a system crash or power outage.  Additionally there is no
way to check or repair data corruption (e2fsc-k) the disks in the web GUI.

D-Links give us RAID 1 capability to help minimize the recovery time from a disk failure, that's great!.  For
data corruption recovery from a power outage (a more likely event that disk failure in my area), I will
only have my own data backups.

I know the necessity of good backups, but there exists mature software that will help minimize the recovery time
from a power outage or system crash, and the DNS-323 hardware is capable or running this software (ext3, xfs, upsd, apcupsd).

For whatever reasons, D-Link has chosen no to implement these features.  I would like to see more "robust"
features for data protection being developed for future firmware, rather that torrent clients or additional
upnp device compatibility.