EXT4 reliability in current Merlin builds

[FTC]

Hi,

I am considering changing the file system of my shared USB3 disk from NTFS to EXT4 due to some recent tuxera related issues with NTFS and would like some comments on the current status and reliability of the EXT4 implementation in current asuswrt / merlin drivers. I've read different opinions recommending and against EXT4, but would like to use it instead of EXT3 because of the performance improvements for huge files (extents et all) and possibility of journaling. By the way, using an RT-AC3200. Thanks

 

[joegreat]

I am running my main disk Torrent disk (1 TB USB 3.0 >90% full) on ext4 for ~2 years now without any issues.

But I run my USB 2.0 thumb drive with ext2 as journaling does not make sense for it...

 

[FTC]

joegreat, good to know!, was this in your 87U ? did you have many power offs ? how did the drive take them (i.e was fsck slow) ? what about performance ? definetly I will try this and will post some feedback in this thread in a couple of days..

any other comment or experiences ?

 

[cybrnook]

I have never had an issue with EXT2 or 4 on Asus Merlin. Also a few years experience on it, though I never looked that close at it (as I never had an issue with it).

Even a nice guide on formatting on Asus routers (One I always use):
http://www.algissalys.com/how-to/format-and-partition-usb-asuswrt-routers

 

[FTC]

Well, my experiment ended really soon.. I did a backup from my NTFS disk and proceeded to reformat it to ext4 and realized while restoring the backup directory structure that performance was low compared to the previous situation, specially when dealing with very small files and complex directory structures.. I could have deepen into things like mounting with 'noatime' and such, but finally decided to go back to NTFS. After all, my 'issues' with tuxera have been minor (fsck not doing its job properly -detecting some minor corruptions without data loss-), and it has served me well for a whole year already with good performance..