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One thing that ext4 has and XFS does not is extremely delayed writes. Ext4 can postpone writes for tens of seconds, essentially minutes. This has various fun implications for software that cares about durable writes, like databases.


If a software, especially a DB, cares about durable writes, it must surely use fsync(), not depend on how long some delays are.


Sort of. The problem is fsync() is a rather blunt tool, forcing too much to be synchronised, reducing concurrency.

I remember when ext4 was new there was debate about supporting atomic rename() without fsync(); see https://lwn.net/Articles/322823/




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