a journaling file system for Linux, and successor to ext3
What is ext4?
ext4 is a journaling file system. Being the forth generation of the Extended Filesystem (full name: Fourth extended file system), it is the successor to ext3, to which it is backward compatible. Its first stable release was introduced in October 2008.
On a 4k block filesystem, it features a maximum file size of 16 TiB, a maximum volume size of 1 EiB, and can hold up to 4 billion files on a single volume. Next to the size improvements, it also brings speed improvements over ext3.
Related tags
- ext2: the second generation of the "extended file system"
- ext3: the third generation of the "extended file system"
- ext4: the forth generation of the "extended file system"
- file-system: A file system is the logical structure to organize (store, retrieve and update) data on a storage device.
- mount: The command to make a storage device accessible
- ntfs: a filesystem used on MS Windows systems
