Reliability of FAT file system for embedded Linux

Hallo Dave,

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (Dave) schrieb in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:

Which reasons do you have to choose FAT as replacement fpr ext2 or better ext3? ext3 is a 24/7/365-filesystem with journaling and fast recovery.

Regards, Kurt

I recommend it if used properly.

Yes, it is perfectly reliable under such conditions as long as you use it read-only.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

Outages caused by occasional loss of power are prevented using a journalling file system like ext3 or reiserfs.

Basically, if you are not using the system under DOS/Windows as well (which you tipically don't do in an embedded system) there is no reason to use FAT. In that case I would not recommend FAT but ext3.

Freddy

Hi,

IMO, the only reason to use a FAT file system for anything, is if you have to have compatibility with Windows. i.e. if you are using something like compact flash, and it has to be readable from a standard Windows box. For anything else there are much better file systems. EXT3, ReiserFS and XFS are all journaling file systems that one can use.

Regards Anton Erasmus

The compact flash _internals_ are not reliable at all when power failiours while writing are possible. So considerations about the file system used are vain.

-Michael

Yes,

But with a journaling file system you at least know whether the last operation was completed successfully or not. This might or might not be recoverable. With something like FAT you have no idea whether the operation was a) not done at all, b) was done halfway c) successfully completed. I might have given the impression in my previous post that FAT is a good option for flash file systems. I meant that if one has a removable media like a compact flash card, that has to be read from a standard Windows box, then your only option might be flash even though it is far from the best technical solution. If one does not need Windows compatibility, then there are many much better technical options, which is as easy if not easier to impliment using linux.

Regards Anton Erasmus

If the card itself fails, it will not be accessible at all. So there is nothing to be recovered.

-Michael