8mo ago

List of useful BTRFS tools

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- Does timeshift also use BTRFS features, or just the normal method?
  
  Timeshifts main reason to use is BTRFS functionality. It's a fantastic tool, but I only used it previously on EXT4, in which case it defaults to slow rsync method. I really like the software, but on my new install decided against using it (I'm on EXT4 yet again). https://github.com/linuxmint/timeshift And while I post this reply, just noticed that Linux Mint is maintaining it now. The old repo is in archive mode: https://github.com/teejee2008/timeshift
  
  Really interesting project.
  Yes I also thought it would be focused on non-BTRFS, especially as Mint doesnt use BTRFS either, right?
  
  You mean the default filesystem? I actually never used Mint and don't think it's the default, but most likely an option at install time. Maybe they plan on switching as the default in the future.
  
  May I ask why you switched back to ext4?
  
  I never used BTRFS at all. At the moment I do not feel comfortable using BTRFS yet and wait until its proven over long time and ironed out even the weirdest edge cases.
  Edit: Don't misunderstand me. I know its relative stable now, but reading here and there about the problems makes me very uncomfortable to switch from the battle tested EXT4. I really like its features and evaluated last year to use BTRFS as my system drive. Ultimately decided against it for now. I plan on using it, and clicked this post for this reason, to learn more about it.
  
  Maintaining btrfs is more work than maintaining ext4, which basically doesn't need any. I.e. running btrfs scrub is important to keep performance up. Monthly scrubs are good because they don't take as long if done regularly.
  Btrfs balance can free up some space, but otherwise isn't important on SSDs.
  
  I think BTRFS is especially problematic on Fedora Atomic desktops.
  Afaik the OSTree snapshots use BTRFS deduplication, also the zstd compression helps reduce storage usage and increase SSD use.
  But as the entire system partitions are read only, you cant balance, scrub etc them.
  This is a big issue I think, I will open a Fedora Discussion post about this.
  https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/119216
  
  Afaik the OSTree snapshots use BTRFS deduplication [...]
  Note: OSTree will transparently take advantage of some BTRFS features if deployed on it. [1]
  Interesting, I didn't know OSTree takes advantage of BTRFS features.
  On my current system I use ext4 instead of btrfs which I regret specifically because of the missing transparent compression and reflink copy.
  [1] https://ostreedev.github.io/ostree/introduction/
  
  I also tried an install with LVM and F2FS instead of the default EXT4. It works, and F2FS is faster in theory, but I only found 2 bigger benchmarks. The older one said BTRFS is waaay slower, a newer one with exact reproducability details said it is equal.
  And yes I suppose that rpm-ostree utilizes the BTRFS CoW, deduplication and compression which all help reducing disk usage.
  But I dont know that.

33 comments