[Discuss] BTRFS, ZFS, XFS .... Confused!!

[Cy Schubert]

In message <alpine.DEB.2.02.1410282213420.15114 at enira.zlyna.ubzr>, "Alan W. 
Irw
in" writes:
> On 2014-10-28 20:44-0700 Cy Schubert wrote:
> 
> > In message <5450034E.50607 at shaw.ca>, John Blomfield writes:
> >> Following the recent comments on this list about Bit Rot and file
> >> systems I have been doing a little reading about the changes that are
> >> coming. Most of the discussion I confess is way above my head unless I
> >> do a lot more reading and studying. However, I would like to achieve
> >> some clarity over the short term until I have time and inclination to
> >> delve deeper myself.
> >
> > Generally the enterprise distro RHEL and its cousins -- CentOS, Oracle
> > Unbreakable Linux, and Scientific Linux -- have put filesystems on LVM
> > (Logical Volume Manager), a rip off of LVM in HP/UX. It eases the pain of
> > partitioning.
> >
> >>
> >> My preferred Distro is OpenSuse and the latest version 13.2 is due to be
> >> released in 6 days and I will no doubt be giving it a test run in the
> >> next few weeks when the teething troubles have been sorted out with the
> >> normal early updates. Until now OpenSuse including the present 13.1,
> >> BTRFS has been an option during installation and referred to as "beta"
> >> but with 13.2 BTRFS is now the default file system but countless other
> >> file systems are available. Amongst these on OpenSuse are ZFS and XFS -
> >> what to do? Will any of these new file systems affect any applications
> >> or the system as a whole and prevent some apps running or perhaps limit
> >> their function?
> >
> > BTRFS is the Linux answer to ZFS, which is not GPL compatible. I've used
> > BTRFS. It's klunky, definitely not a breeze like ZFS is. You could use ZFS
> > under fuse but given the performance hit under fuse it's not worth it.
> > Personally, I'd stick with LVM, I don't think BTRFS is production ready.
> 
> @ Cy: LVM is not a file system.  Instead, it is an optional layer that
> provides logical partitions that is installed on top of actual
> hardware partitions.  Also, it is clear that OpenSUSE does feel that
> BTRFS is production ready.  If they make a mistake about that, it is a
> huge hit for their distro and their personal reputations so I assume
> they did a lot of testing and due diligence before making this huge
> decision.

Yes but ZFS and BTRFS merge volume management and filesystem into single 
"domains" if you may. My point is that I wouldn't trust BTRFS right now and 
I'd stay with LVM + EXT4 for now.

> 
> @ John: File systems like BTRFS and ext4 (probably the
> previous SuSe default filesystem) are installed either on hardware
> partitions or logical partitions.  Then your files are stored on the
> filesystem, and in the normal course of events you should not
> even be noticing your filesystem (except for the case of snapshots).
> 
> BTRFS has been the expected successor to ext4 on Linux for at least 5
> years now (even by the principal developer of ext4).  See the remarks
> in <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Btrfs>.  However, ext4 has been 
> "good enough" and zillions of users had little trouble with ext4.
> Thus, many distributions stuck with ext4 as the default despite lack
> of certain killer features (that BTRFS has) such as snapshots.

BTRFS lacks a reliable repair facility. I don't think I'd trust it yet.


-- 
Cheers,
Cy Schubert <Cy.Schubert at komquats.com>
FreeBSD UNIX:  <cy at FreeBSD.org>   Web:  http://www.FreeBSD.org

	The need of the many outweighs the greed of the few.