Reliable Linux File System Type?

[l11h]

Hi,

 

I have been using Linux as a backup server, used Samba and connected to it using Windows Share (Internal) / FTP (External) access. This worked great and had no problem with using this.

 

The problem was the operating system file type. I was using Mandriva with Ext3 file system type. And one day the operating system decided to corrupt itself. I did a routine restart and when I decided to start it again, nothing would load. The whole system was corrupted. 

 

The first 6 months it worked great and no problem, used Linux as had no issues with speed, but this is the first problem I have had. 

 

So what I want to know what O/S do you recommend me to use that has a better file system type, that's a lot more reliable. And yes I do shut down the machine a lot, this is because I do not need access to the data 24/7. 

 

Yes I do use Dropbox but I also want my own backup of data that I do not want to put on Dropbox or a service of a similar kind. 

 

I have used Ubuntu Server I think it uses Ext4 not too sure, is that file system any better? 

 

This hasn't happened to me before not even on windows lol. 

 

I will be using OwnCloud as that seems pretty interesting. 

 

Thanks for all your help

[lutzee]

Ext4 makes a few improvements over Ext3, but there isn't a massive difference between the two.

zfs is a good choice, though its up to you if you choose to use BSD over linux. Its not often that a filesystem will just fail, ext4 has been well proven and there is a reason for it being the default linux file system

[l11h]

Yh I know it's not normal for a file system to break like that, never has happened on Windows for me, well I even had this machine running for year previously and no problem, so have no idea why.

 

Reason why i want to go Linux route is so I can install OwnCloud, so I dont have to use shared drives or FTP from an external computer. 

 

But i'll give ZFS a try see how that goes so with ZFS is it all FTP based to get info off external computer meaning not inside the network? 

[lutzee]

Yh I know it's not normal for a file system to break like that, never has happened on Windows for me, well I even had this machine running for year previously and no problem, so have no idea why.

 

Reason why i want to go Linux route is so I can install OwnCloud, so I dont have to use shared drives or FTP from an external computer. 

 

But i'll give ZFS a try see how that goes so with ZFS is it all FTP based to get info off external computer meaning not inside the network?

Can I get a more detailed information of the system that failed? What distro was being used with what software?

And ZSH,Ext3/4, NTFS, FAT* are all file systems, they are definitions of how the data is organised on the drive. FTP is a transfer protocol and Samba is a file server. FTP and samba will work independently of the file system being used as the file system is only controlled by the kernel, and the other programs ask the kernel to get data from the file system.

[l11h]

Can I get a more detailed information of the system that failed? What distro was being used with what software?

And ZSH,Ext3/4, NTFS, FAT* are all file systems, they are definitions of how the data is organised on the drive. FTP is a transfer protocol and Samba is a file server. FTP and samba will work independently of the file system being used as the file system is only controlled by the kernel, and the other programs ask the kernel to get data from the file system.

So I was using Mandriva 2011.0 I think or 2012 one of them two lol.

 

Used this as at the time I was familiar with this distro and it was running fine before, reinstalled it as I got a new hard-drive.

 

The hard-drive itself is fine, was able to install another o/s on Hard-drive and worked normal. 

 

The software being used were Samba, SSH and SFTP, and yes I did shut down computer at night. 

 

And one day it just said it couldn't find /root /dev /sys pretty much most files, I used a live CD to access data and it said Ext3 could not be access or something similar. 

and then gave a Kernel kill switch message after saying nothing could be found. 

SDA5 was the hard-drive sector that was broken. 

 

I'll be happy to use Ubuntu with OwnCloud as long as it doesn't so something similar to what happened with this lol. 

[lutzee]

So I was using Mandriva 2011.0 I think or 2012 one of them two lol.

 

Used this as at the time I was familiar with this distro and it was running fine before, reinstalled it as I got a new hard-drive.

 

The hard-drive itself is fine, was able to install another o/s on Hard-drive and worked normal. 

 

The software being used were Samba, SSH and SFTP, and yes I did shut down computer at night. 

 

And one day it just said it couldn't find /root /dev /sys pretty much most files, I used a live CD to access data and it said Ext3 could not be access or something similar. 

and then gave a Kernel kill switch message after saying nothing could be found. 

SDA5 was the hard-drive sector that was broken. 

 

I'll be happy to use Ubuntu with OwnCloud as long as it doesn't so something similar to what happened with this lol.

'hard drive sector that was broken' Indicates a problem with the hard drive and not the file system, BUT, the hard drive can map out bad sectors and not use them, meaning you can still use the Hard drive after that point. Though, it is quite likely to happen again, I suggest you do a full disk scan and see what it produces. If there appears to be a fair few bad sectors I suggest you replace the drive.

[l11h]

'hard drive sector that was broken' Indicates a problem with the hard drive and not the file system, BUT, the hard drive can map out bad sectors and not use them, meaning you can still use the Hard drive after that point. Though, it is quite likely to happen again, I suggest you do a full disk scan and see what it produces. If there appears to be a fair few bad sectors I suggest you replace the drive.

 

I have done all the checks with the hard-drive and everything seems to be fine, maybe I read the error wrong? It has been a few weeks since this has happened lol. 

But now I am starting to miss my own home backup server. 

 

From all the research I did do it seemed it was the O/S, but yeah you could be right, it may have been the hard-drive. 

 

I have a Western Digital Red Enterprise hard-drive, bought this mainly for reliability really. I mean I am currently running Windows off that machine and have no problems with it, using Windows just to make sure everything runs fine, and a few weeks of running Windows seems to run like a charm. 

 

So if this was a hard-drive problem, do you think a RAID setup would have helped? I have built in RAID support on motherboard, need something simple anyway, RAID 1 will do for me. 

But if this were to be an O/S problem would RAID have helped? 

 

Thanks for all your help lutzee