We have just ordered a new webserver with 120 Gb solid state disk and a SATA disk. I am trying to plan ahead what sort of filesystem to use.

This system will be running Linux, Apache/Tomcat to host java services. The main service is a system where people can upload reasonably large files (in the order of 100 Mb, images, image stacks and video), which people will be able to annotate and which will be sent to a database server when annotation is complete.

Thus far, I plan to put most of the utility programs of the operating system om the SSD and put the large media files there. The SATA disks will hold the less volitile data like apache, tomcat and the servlets.

For filesystems I have considered going for the stable EXT3 because I hear that it is best supported. The downside seems to be that it not the ideal choice for large files. That is why I am leaning towards using XFS for the SSD and EXT3 for the SATA.

My questions are: 1) Does this sound like a reasonable setup? 2) What filesystems would you recommend for the SSD and for the SATA?

Thanks