MTBF of Ext3 and Partition Size

[Eric Sandeen]

Kyle Brandt wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> On several of my servers I seem to have a high rate of server crashes do
> to file system errors.  So I have some questions related to this:
> 
> Is there any Mean Time Between Failure ( MTBF) data for the ext3
> file-system?
> 
> Does increased partition size cause a higher risk of the partition being
> corrupted? If so, is there any data on the ratio between partition size
> and the likely hood of failure?
> 
> Does ext3 on hardware raid (10) increase the possibility of file system
> corruption?
> 
> Does anyone recommend any partitioning schemes that might help the
> server stay up in the event of corruption?
> 
> Are there any mount options that might help?
> 
> Thank you,
> Kyle

Rather than answer the above questions, I'd rather say that if ext3 is
getting corrupted it's a bug somewhere (or bad hardware) - and if it's
a bug then it needs to be investigated and fixed.

Even before any temporary workaround could be suggested, it'd be most
helpful if you could say what errors you are encountering, with as much
detail as possible (i.e. kernel logs, e2fsck output) and what kernel you
are using.

-Eric