ext3 OR ext2

[errol]

I recently made a seperate /home partition on another disk on my computer. In my learning curve in Linux I now see there are (at least) two ways I could have done this. Make a ext2 partition or ext3 partition and copy the /home there. I made a ext2 partition(if "partition" is the correct term to use) and transfered my /home there. I was a wise move as I can now "play around" with Kubuntu without the fear of loosing my own files.
Now for my question. Is there an advantage to using either of these "ext's"? I googled for some explanations but didn't really find satisfying answers. My reading and learning says I should have used ext3 as it is newer (and better?).
Pointers, advice and comments will help my learning curve.
TIA
Errol

[FabreFaction]

Re: ext3 OR ext2

The Second Extended filesystem (ext2) is native to Linux. It is fairly quick, and it defragments itself. Nearly every Linux system uses ext2 or its newer, journaled version, ext3.

Ext2 has one major problem, though: If the computer is shut down improperly (because of a power outage, system crash, or the like), it can take several minutes for Linux to verify an ext2fs partition’s integrity when the computer reboots. This delay is an annoyance at best, and it is a serious problem on mission-critical systems such as major servers.

The solution is implemented in what’s known as a journaling filesystem.
Third Extended filesystems (ext3) are ext2 filesystems augmented with journal support. This can make recovery from an abrupt system reboot or failure quicker and less painful.

Such a filesystem keeps a record of changes it’s about to make in a special journal log file. Therefore, after an unexpected crash, the system can examine the log file to determine what areas of the disk might need to be checked. This design makes for very fast checks after a crash or power failure—a few seconds at most, typically.

The choice is up to you, but if you have a fairly quick CPU/Mem/Disk config then you may as well go with ext3 as this will not affect performance and will save you time and heartache in the event of a system failure.

Hope this helps..................FF

[errol]

Re: ext3 OR ext2

Yup, thanks. That's the explanation I needed.
Errol