Ext4, the next generation of Linux's Ext3 filesystem, is now available in the latest Ubuntu 9.04 installer images. Ext4 was officially declared stable in version 2.6.28 of the Linux kernel, which was released last month.

Ext4 is designed to provide better performance and increase reliability. It also increases the maximum filesystem size to one exabyte and reduces the amount of time that is required to perform a fsck operation.

Linux hardware site Phoronix has released benchmarks based on extensive Ext4 performance testing that was conducted with a solid-state drive. The most impressive results can be seen in the IOzone test, which measures write performance for a large file. In this test, Ext4 annihilated the competition and significantly outperformed XFS, JFS, ReiserFS, and Ext3. The new filesystem also outpaced its peers in the Intel IOMeter File Server Access Pattern Test.



Benchmark graph by Phoronix

If you want to conduct these benchmarks yourself, grab the latest Ubuntu 9.04 daily build image and the Phoronix Test Suite.