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I'm using ZFS right now, because I need something that cares for data integrity, but the fact that it will never be included in Linux is a very big issue for me

I'm using ZFS right now, because I need something that cares for data integrity, but the fact that it will never be included in Linux is a very big issue for me. Every time you upgrade your kernel, you have to upgrade the separate modules as well - this is the point where bad things can happen. I will definitely be looking into Btrfs once it is more reliable. For now I'm having a bit of a problem with SSD caching and performance, but don't care about it enough for it to be relevant, I just use the filesystem to store data safely and ZFS does an OK job.

IgorPartola 12y ago
Out of curiosity, what distro are you using that's giving you problems? My Ubuntu box is humming along with no problems: kernel and ZFS updates happen at the same time.
- ryao 12y ago
  That is a feature of DKMS. Not all distributions use this, but most distributions on which ZFS is available have ways of avoiding this problem.
sp332 12y ago
From what I understand, aside from certain RAID levels, btrfs is production-ready. RAID5 and RAID6 don't have recovery code finished yet, but RAID0, RAID1, "dup" which just keeps 2 copies of each chunk, and "single" mode all work fine.
- xioxox 12y ago
  I've setup btrfs on software mdraid (raid 6) as a backup system (not the only backup!). You still get the checksums and snapshotting, but not the flexibility of the btrfs raid system. It has the advantage of being easy to grow, unlike zfs, which can't be resized once created. We've encountered no problems, even though it has been running for around three years of rsyncing and snapshotting.
  - barrkel 12y ago
    zfs can grow - new vdevs can be added, and existing vdevs can have their disks replaced one at a time with larger disks. A bigger downside of ZFS, IMO, is lack of defragmentation and similar larger scale pool management. If you ever push a ZFS pool close to its space limit, you can end up with fragmentation that never really goes away, even if you delete lots of files. The recommended solution is to recreate the pool and restore from backup, or create a new pool and stream a snapshot across with zfs send | zfs receive. Not terribly practical for most home users.
    - xioxox 12y ago
      zfs can sort of grow by adding vdevs, as you say, however it's pretty wasteful due to the new parity drives It was much more efficient to expand the mdraid raid 6 and expand the btrfs onto that. The other backup server does use zfs (albeit the user mode fuse version). I set up that system in a similar way putting zfs-fuse on mdraid 6.
ryao 12y ago
Which distribution are you using and does this involve / on ZFS? Most distributions have ways of avoiding this problem. If you are using a distribution where this is a problem, I would like to know so that I can try to address it. I can do nothing about it without knowing more.

IgorPartola 12y ago

Out of curiosity, what distro are you using that's giving you problems? My Ubuntu box is humming along with no problems: kernel and ZFS updates happen at the same time.

ryao 12y ago
That is a feature of DKMS. Not all distributions use this, but most distributions on which ZFS is available have ways of avoiding this problem.

sp332 12y ago

From what I understand, aside from certain RAID levels, btrfs is production-ready. RAID5 and RAID6 don't have recovery code finished yet, but RAID0, RAID1, "dup" which just keeps 2 copies of each chunk, and "single" mode all work fine.

xioxox 12y ago
I've setup btrfs on software mdraid (raid 6) as a backup system (not the only backup!). You still get the checksums and snapshotting, but not the flexibility of the btrfs raid system. It has the advantage of being easy to grow, unlike zfs, which can't be resized once created. We've encountered no problems, even though it has been running for around three years of rsyncing and snapshotting.
- barrkel 12y ago
  zfs can grow - new vdevs can be added, and existing vdevs can have their disks replaced one at a time with larger disks. A bigger downside of ZFS, IMO, is lack of defragmentation and similar larger scale pool management. If you ever push a ZFS pool close to its space limit, you can end up with fragmentation that never really goes away, even if you delete lots of files. The recommended solution is to recreate the pool and restore from backup, or create a new pool and stream a snapshot across with zfs send | zfs receive. Not terribly practical for most home users.
  - xioxox 12y ago
    zfs can sort of grow by adding vdevs, as you say, however it's pretty wasteful due to the new parity drives It was much more efficient to expand the mdraid raid 6 and expand the btrfs onto that. The other backup server does use zfs (albeit the user mode fuse version). I set up that system in a similar way putting zfs-fuse on mdraid 6.

ryao 12y ago

Which distribution are you using and does this involve / on ZFS? Most distributions have ways of avoiding this problem. If you are using a distribution where this is a problem, I would like to know so that I can try to address it. I can do nothing about it without knowing more.