Linux 3.3 Kernel: Btrfs vs. EXT4

It's that time of the Linux kernel development cycle again... Here are benchmarks of the EXT4 and Btrfs file-systems with the soon-to-be-released Linux 3.3 kernel.

The Linux 3.3 file-system benchmarks were done from two systems: one low-end Core i3-based system with a hard drive and then a high-end Core i7 system with a high-performance Intel SSD. As usual, the EXT4 and Btrfs file-systems were tested with their default mount options. A development snapshot of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS was the base operating system and then upgraded to the Linux 3.3 development x86_64 kernel.

The last round of file-system tests was "NILFS2 Against Btrfs & EXT4 On Linux 3.2" from last December. Unlike the Linux 3.2 kernel where there were pretty beefy Btrfs changes, there was not as much EXT4/Btrfs file-system changes for this current cycle. One new EXT4 feature in the Linux 3.3 kernel is online resize support. Btrfs is now in a state where Oracle's taking it production ready. It will not be until Fedora 18 later in the year though when we may see much more widespread adoption of this next-generation Linux file-system.