Ext3
journaling file system for Linux
ext3, or third extended filesystem, is a journaled file system that is commonly used with the Linux kernel. It used to be the default file system for many popular Linux distributions but generally has been supplanted by its successor version ext4. The main advantage of ext3 over its predecessor, ext2, is journaling, which improves reliability and eliminates the need to check the file system after an unclean or improper shutdown.
History
Stephen Tweedie first revealed that he was working on extending ext2 in Journaling the Linux ext2fs Filesystem in a 1998 paper, and later in a February 1999 kernel mailing list posting. The filesystem was merged with the mainline Linux kernel in November 2001 from 2.4.15 onward.
Advantages
The speed performance of ext3 is less attractive than competing Linux filesystems, such as ext4, JFS, ReiserFS, and XFS, but ext3 has a significant advantage in that it allows in-place upgrades from ext2 without having to back up and restore data. Benchmarks suggest that ext3 also uses less CPU power than ReiserFS and XFS. It is also considered safer than the other Linux file systems, due to its relative simplicity and wider testing base.
ext3 adds the following features to ext2:
A journal
Online file system growth
HTree indexing for larger directories
Without these features, any ext3 file system is also a valid ext2 file system. This situation has allowed well-tested and mature file system maintenance utilities for maintaining and repairing ext2 file systems to also be used with ext3 without major changes. The ext2 and ext3 file systems share the same standard set of utilities, e2fsprogs, which includes an fsck tool.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Ext3” as journaling file system for Linux. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as journaling file system for Linux. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q283390. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1998, 1999 and 2001.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ext3” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.