However, many beginners always want to know whether XFS or EXT4 is the best. In this tutorial, we will provide the complete details and the significant differences between XFS and EXT4.
XFS vs. EXT4: A Brief Comparison
Before moving to the comparison, let’s take a look at the brief description on both XFS and EXT4 file systems:
What Is EXT4?
EXT filesystem was first introduced with the debut of the Minix operating system in 1987. When the Linux kernel appeared in 1992, the Ext filesystem was its foundation. Ext4 entered the scene in 2008 when Linux 2.6.28 replaced ext3, its predecessor.
The main feature of the ext4 filesystem is to flawlessly manage a large number of small files. It is also backward-compatible with ext3 and ext2. Thus, making it possible to mount them as ext4 and eventually read and write to those older-generation filesystems. Some of the most notable features of the EXT4 File system are as follows:
- Support for large file systems.
- Up to 1 exbibyte (EiB) volume size
- Up to 16 tebibytes (TiB) with 4 KiB block size
- For quicker file allocations, a delayed allocation based on extent is used.
- Journal checksums to minimize the chances of corruption.
- Metadata checksums are supported since 2012.
- Backward compatibility with Ext3 and Ext2 filesystems.
- Faster file-system checking by skipping the unallocated block groups.
- Lazy initialization helps in clearing the inode tables and faster initialization while creating a new ext4 file system.
- Transparent encryption is supported since 2015.
- Write barriers are enabled by default. It helps ensure the integrity and order of file system metadata on disk, even in the case of a power loss.
What Is XFS?
XFS filesystem was also created in the early 1990s, benefiting the considerably large servers and workstations. It’s a high-performance 64-bit journaling file system. Its specialty lies in the execution of parallel input/output(I/O) operations due to its design which uses allocation groups.
In the event of a power outage or system failure, journaling maintains the integrity of the file system. As the name suggests, it’s done by maintaining a journal of all the file system operations, which can be retraced to maintain its integrity. Some of the key features of the XFS file system are as follows:
- Supports larger file systems compared to ext4.
- Supports metadata and quota journaling. It helps in faster recoveries after a system crash.
- Integrated backup and restore functions.
- Delayed allocation helps reduce fragmentation and increases performance.
- Supports defragmentation and growth of file system while it’s actively mounted.
- Supports extended attributes and provide the ability to store additional name-value pairs per file.
- XFS doesn’t directly provide support for snapshots.
- Can’t shrink the XFS filesystem directly.
Difference Between EXT4 and XFS
Now, we compare EXT4 and XFS file systems through some essential factors:
| Factors | EXT4 | XFS |
| Architecture | Linked list, hashed B-Tree | B+ trees |
| Conceived in | 2006 | 1993 |
| Maximum File Size | 16 tebibyte | 8 exbibytes |
| Maximum number of files | 4 billion | 264 |
| Characters not allowed in filenames | “\0”(NULL), “/” and unique file names “.” and “..” | NULL and “/” |
| Transparent compression | No | No |
| Transparent encryption | Yes | No (provided at block level) |
| Copy-on-write (COW) | No | Planned |
| Snapshots | No | Planned |
Conclusion
This is a brief detail on the significant differences between XFS and EXT4 and why they are so popular. These file systems are essential for any OS to store and maintain the data without getting any errors. We created a comparison table to give you a detailed explanation of the differences.
