XFS File System in Linux
The XFS file system is an extension of the extent file system. The XFS is a high-performance 64-bit journaling file system. The support of the XFS was merged into Linux kernel in around 2002 and In 2009 Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 5.4 usage of the XFS file system. XFS supports maximum file size of 8 EB. The max volume size support by XFS is 16 EB and max file length is 255. Now, the RHEL 7.0 uses XFS as the default filesystem. The XFS file system can also be defragmented and enlarged while mounted and active. In addition, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 supports backup and restore utilities specific to XFS.
An important feature is the allocation group, which makes XFS a highly scalable file system that allows you to store large numbers of files, and very large files. Each allocation group manages its own inodes and free space and by creating allocation groups, you can make sure that several processes and threads can service the file system simultaneously, which can increase performance.
XFS is not supported for use with the root (/) or boot file systems on Oracle Linux.
Difference between Ext4 and XFS:
| Task | ext4 | XFS |
| Create a file system | mkfs.ext4 or mkfs.ext3 | mkfs.xfs |
| File system check | e2fsck | xfs_repair |
| Resizing a file system | resize2fs | xfs_growfs |
| Save an image of a file system | e2image | xfs_metadump and xfs_mdrestore |
| Label or tune a file system | e2image | xfs_admin |
| Backup a file system | dump and restore | xfsdump and xfsrestore |
Enjoy it!
