Record of using Linux file system 'Btrfs' for 5 years
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Windows NTFS and Linux ext4 are well known file systems for managing data recorded in storage, but there are also ZFS and Btrfs file systems that can be used on Linux. Mark McBride, who has been using the Btrfs on his own server for five years, has published a record of why he chose Btrfs and how easy it was to use it.
Five Years of Btrfs | MarkMcB
https://markmcb.com/2020/01/07/five-years-of-btrfs/
Btrfs is a failure-resistant file system that has a self-healing function and a snapshot function for files, and has been used in corporate servers. Mark said he was wondering whether to use Btrfs or ZFS when reviewing the storage system as the data capacity of his server increased. Both are mature and feature-rich file systems, and there is constant debate over which one to use on the Internet. However, Mark said Btrfs would be preferable if the storage configuration could change in the future.
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With ZFS, adding physical storage is somewhat difficult, and there is no function to distribute the originally stored data to the added storage even if it is added. On the other hand, Btrfs can perform operations such as adding and deleting storage more flexibly than ZFS. For example, if two units are mirroring an 8TB HDD, ZFS recommends preparing two 8TB HDDs as well, but for Btrfs it is a problem to add 6TB and 10TB HDDs Mirroring without the need to distribute data to additional storage.
The following is the transition of Mark's own storage configuration over 5 years. At the beginning of 2011, the size of the server was small, and RAID5 was built using five 1TB HDDs. The file system used ext4. In 2013, we have RAID10 with four 3TB HDDs.
From 2015, Mark starts using Btrfs. As of 2015, we had
In 2017, we changed the storage configuration significantly. In the main server, six HDDs were consolidated into five, and in the backup server, the configuration was changed from three 6TB HDDs to four 8TB HDDs. There was no particular problem with the main server that uses Btrfs, whose storage configuration can be easily changed, but the backup server using ZFS was forced to reconfigure the file system.
From 2018, Btrfs will also be used on the backup server. In 2019 and 2020, the backup server suffered a HDD failure, but replacing it with a new HDD has gotten nothing.
ZFS's data processing method and data capacity efficiency are excellent, but it is not suitable for those who have large data capacity and frequently change storage configurations. However, new file systems such as bcachefs are also emerging, and Mark says he is looking forward to how the file system will evolve over the next five years.
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