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Hoosier_1701 · Jan 22, 2003, 11:51 PM

Journaling has been available in OS X for a few months now. I was wondering if a general consensus has formed as to whether or not it is a good idea to enable journaling on an OS X client machine? Is there an obvious performance penalty? On the other hand, is there an increase in stability or data integrity?

yuriwho · Jan 22, 2003, 11:59 PM

I 've been running it since introduction on 3 machines....no problems. OS X seems more stable to me since I have been using journaling. As far as performance is concerned, I haven't noticed a significant decrease. For me, stability was more impt.

Y

Cipher13 · Jan 23, 2003, 12:24 AM

There's no reason not to use it, unless you're worried about a few K of disk space... it won't speed things up, it won't slow things down (noticeably), it won't make your system more stable, it won't cure cancer, but hey. It sounds cool.

You'll only really notice it in the event of a HD problem (soft prob, not hard). I mean by that... well, you won't really notice it, because if it does it's job, you'll not lose data

Socially Awkward Solo · Jan 23, 2003, 12:35 AM

Originally posted by Cipher13:
There's no reason not to use it, unless you're worried about a few K of disk space... it won't speed things up, it won't slow things down (noticeably),

It actually does slow things down on a laptop.

Sarc · Jan 23, 2003, 01:03 AM

use it since introduction ... no problems here

OreoCookie · Jan 23, 2003, 02:33 AM

Originally posted by Socially Awkward Solo:
It actually does slow things down on a laptop.

One crash and all those lost performance is ?regained' by avoiding serious problems. (E. g. a crash with 10.1.5 cost me a license of DiskWarrior (that couldn't recover the important files that I was hoping it would recover) and about three days of work ...)

I'd definitely suggest that you'd use it.

Gul Banana · Jan 23, 2003, 03:53 AM

I use it on my tower (G4/400), but not on my laptop (iBook 800) - with a slow laptop harddrive, the performance loss is just too drastic.

as2 · Jan 23, 2003, 05:41 AM

how do I switch it on?

Adam

-Q- · Jan 23, 2003, 08:49 AM

Originally posted by as2:
how do I switch it on?

Adam

Here's the instructions on Mac OS X Hints. But essentially it's:

From Mac OS X Hints:
To enable journaling on OS X Client, use the Terminal command:
% sudo diskutil enableJournal /

dwishbone · Jan 23, 2003, 09:01 AM

can journaling safely be turned off once its turned on? if so whats the command. i dont like trying something new unless i can back out of it if it sux.

Developer · Jan 23, 2003, 09:05 AM

Originally posted by Hoosier_1701:
Journaling has been available in OS X for a few months now. I was wondering if a general consensus has formed as to whether or not it is a good idea to enable journaling on an OS X client machine? Is there an obvious performance penalty? On the other hand, is there an increase in stability or data integrity?

There is no reason to use it. The only advantage is that it saves you from scanning the disk for inconsistencies on startup after a system crash. Since OS X rarely crashes anyway, and then you could bear the one minute of scanning, it's not worth to take the general perfomance penalty for it.
Now on a server, where scanning large disks with lots of files takes a significant amount of time, and downtime is important, it's something else.

Millennium · Jan 23, 2003, 09:25 AM

If your system has stability issues, then you definitely want to use journaling. Even if you don't, it's a good idea just to be on the safe side, since crashes are not the only cause of sudden reboots. I haven't noticed any significant slowdown on my laptop, but I've had to do some rather... interesting... things since upgrading to 10.2.3, and it's helped me out there tremendously.

Contrary to what Developer has said, there is no "general performance penalty" that you'll be taking. The only thing even said to be affected adversely is disk access, and very few people have experienced a performance penalty even in that area.

Note that checking the disk is likely to involve turning journaling off; some software (like Disk Utility) makes you do it before it'll work, and other software (like DiskWarrior) will turn it off automatically. In that case, you'll have to turn it on again when you're done.

Tu turn journaling off, just use the same command as to turn it on, but swap out "enableJournal" for "disableJournal". So...

Code:
sudo diskutil disableJournal /

as2 · Jan 23, 2003, 11:43 AM

Code:
% sudo diskutil enableJournal /

Does this enable it for the boot drive only, and can it be enabled on other partitions?

Adam

dwishbone · Jan 23, 2003, 12:00 PM

Originally posted by Millennium:

Tu turn journaling off, just use the same command as to turn it on, but swap out "enableJournal" for "disableJournal". So...

Code:
sudo diskutil disableJournal /

i figured thats all it was.
good question though...does this enable journaling for all? looks like it would only do it for root.
how would i do it for, lets say, an external 120GB HD?

Cincinnatus · Jan 23, 2003, 12:10 PM

For external, or internal non-root partitions (with one or more logical partitions to a physical drive):

sudo diskutil enableJournal /Volumes/<nameOfYourPartition>

/cincinnatus

dwishbone · Jan 23, 2003, 12:25 PM

thanks. wonder what it would be like to journal an iPod :-)

as2 · Jan 23, 2003, 12:55 PM

Originally posted by dwishbone:
thanks. wonder what it would be like to journal an iPod :-)

Well I've enabled it so I'll see if it makes much difference!

Adam

Millennium · Jan 23, 2003, 01:50 PM

Originally posted by as2:
Well I've enabled it so I'll see if it makes much difference!

It's doubtful that it would make any difference. I don't think the iPod actually supports journaling, so while it will still work, it won't actually do anything with the journal.

Socially Awkward Solo · Jan 23, 2003, 02:07 PM

Originally posted by OreoCookie:
One crash and all those lost performance is ?regained' by avoiding serious problems. (E. g. a crash with 10.1.5 cost me a license of DiskWarrior (that couldn't recover the important files that I was hoping it would recover) and about three days of work ...)

I'd definitely suggest that you'd use it.

Not quite. Just because journaling is on does not mean your drive will not become curruprt or crash less. I have had it on since day one and I still have strange crashes AND when I run FSCK -f at startup it still finds a bunch of errors.

DannyVTim · Jan 23, 2003, 03:54 PM

Originally posted by Socially Awkward Solo:
Not quite. Just because journaling is on does not mean your drive will not become curruprt or crash less. I have had it on since day one and I still have strange crashes AND when I run FSCK -f at startup it still finds a bunch of errors.

Yes it does not mean that one will have fewer errors; however, I have noticed far far fewer errors with it on. Most importantly, one must start out with an error free disk and run fsck every once in a while and they will stand a better chance than if you were not using journaling. Every file system out has been using journaling for a long long time and that shows its value.

Likewise, I have noticed a considerable reduction in errors since I turned it on. And it puts the amount of errors on the same level that one gets with other operating systems. There is really no reason not to have it on. I think when Apple is happy with performance it will be turned on by default. I user PhotoShop and large database�s and haven�t really noticed a penalty.

t_hah · Jan 23, 2003, 08:58 PM

Originally posted by Cincinnatus:
For external, or internal non-root partitions (with one or more logical partitions to a physical drive):

sudo diskutil enableJournal /Volumes/<nameOfYourPartition>

/cincinnatus

Hm...if I can do it on an external HD, how could I run fsck on the external drive first? Does it require single used mode boot, or could it be done from just OSX?

as2 · Jan 23, 2003, 09:19 PM

Enabled journaling on my iMac 400mhz, and promptly turned it off again...

I found it made a huge difference to the performance of my machine.

I'll just have to make sure I keep my backups up to date.

Adam

psu03bob · Jan 23, 2003, 09:39 PM

Originally posted by as2:
Enabled journaling on my iMac 400mhz, and promptly turned it off again...

I found it made a huge difference to the performance of my machine.

I'll just have to make sure I keep my backups up to date.

Adam

I used journaling on my iMac 400 from the time it was introduced with no noticable change in preformance. I did have an additional 256mb of RAM on top of the stock 128, and and the factory HD on this machine was replaced with a 20gig drive after it failed. That could explain our differing experences.

With no reports of journaling damaging peoples data or drives, i would suggest giving it a try it is just as easy to turn off it you have a noticeable change in preformance.

wataru · Jan 24, 2003, 01:14 AM

I haven't noticed a performance difference on any machine I've enabled it on. That includes 3 laptops.

Leia Shoots Like a Girl · Jan 24, 2003, 01:40 AM

Damn thing won't let me turn it off. Says I need to enable root.

me17213 · Jan 24, 2003, 01:54 AM

Where is the file that contains the journal?

Gul Banana · Jan 24, 2003, 03:42 AM

It's not something you can access with a pathname - just a block of sectors set aside for the purpose of journal.

eno · Jan 24, 2003, 07:24 AM

Originally posted by Developer:
There is no reason to use it.

What kind of nonsense is this?

I *sincerely* hope that you run into the poo over this. That will teach you.

People like you shouldn't have the privilege of free speech.

OreoCookie · Jan 24, 2003, 11:19 AM

Originally posted by Leia Shoots Like a Girl:
Damn thing won't let me turn it off. Says I need to enable root.

Type in

su [name of administrator]
enter password

sudo diskutil enableJournal /
enter password for admin user again

exit
exit

And you are done.

Leia Shoots Like a Girl · Jan 24, 2003, 12:21 PM

Originally posted by OreoCookie:
Type in

su [name of administrator]
enter password

sudo diskutil enableJournal /
enter password for admin user again

exit
exit

And you are done.

Thanks, but you gotta love this:

"Journaling has been disabled on /"

Disabled is on?! Ha ha

Vanquish · Jan 24, 2003, 01:38 PM

Thanks, but you gotta love this:

"Journaling has been disabled on /"

Disabled is on?! Ha ha

read it again

P · Jan 24, 2003, 05:11 PM

Originally posted by eno:
What kind of nonsense is this?

I *sincerely* hope that you run into the poo over this. That will teach you.

People like you shouldn't have the privilege of free speech.

I think it's a good thing that people in these forums seldom overreact. Think what a horrible situation that would be, calling for the elimination of fundamental rights and stuff...

Journalling of the metadata, which is what we're talking about here, means that the disk check is faster. You can still lose data, because the actual contents of the files is not protected in any way. efs3, the journalling hack the Linux file system efs2, can optionally do full journalling, but that's _really_ slow and not very useful.

Journalling is a map to show where the hidden treasures are, but you can still find them anyway by digging up the entire island - if you get the metaphor.

bradoesch · Jan 24, 2003, 07:52 PM

I'd say nay. I enabled it today and was greeted by kernel panics every 5 minutes.

Got it turned off and it's all good now.

decursive · Jan 24, 2003, 09:15 PM

Originally posted by Leia Shoots Like a Girl:
Thanks, but you gotta love this:

"Journaling has been disabled on /"

Disabled is on?! Ha ha

/ means the boot disk.

rw · Jan 24, 2003, 11:33 PM

Originally posted by Socially Awkward Solo:
I have had it on since day one and I still have strange crashes AND when I run FSCK -f at startup it still finds a bunch of errors.

I don't know about the crashes, but according to Apple, it's expected that fsck will report errors when journaling is on: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107250