Btrfs

[GreyGeek]

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With that, converting to BTRFS makes no sense at this point with my small system, which does not include multiple users or multiple OS implementations, and which is already being backed up to off-system drives using a rotating media strategy. ...

If you are just backing up your home account data only, and not the entire system, Btrfs may be overkill. Drag & Drop to another mounted device via Dolphin is easy as long as your data doesn't include links to sockets or root files and config files, etc. so is using tar scripts.

For backing up the entire system Cloning tools or ghost imaging is necessary. However, the data in my home account alone is 78Gb and includes links to sound devices (Orbit2010 running with WINE) so a D&D via Dolphin onto another mechanical HD can take 20-30 minutes or more. A Btrfs ro snapshot of both my @ and @home subvolumes takes just a couple seconds. The Btrfs send & receive to a temporarily mounted HD, while taking 20 min each, works in the background while I use my system. It's been a decade since I've used tar scripts or cloning tools but if memory serves me correctly one cannot use their system while using them, so as to "freeze" the state of your system.

Restoring @ and/or @home with Btrfs is significantly easier than other methods.

If one had more than 200-300Gb of data Btrfs would significantly outperform other file systems and backup AND restoration methods.

As far as RAID is concerned I've been using Btrfs for 36 months and RAID1 on two 750 Gb HDs for 6 months. Performance and snapshotting has been flawless. I have never needed to restore from a snapshot ... yet.

I cannot detect any difference in performance or speed between my previous single HD installation and my current two HD RAID1 setup.


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[jglen490]

Thanks for your reply GreyGeek!

I use rsync to back up my /home including the /home/multimedia partition on sdb1. It's painless. While it probably is slower due to saving via USB to an external drive, it is safe and provides a very recoverable solution. I have made use of recovery from the full backup from time to time, but again a painless operation.

Again, I deliberately keep my system small and compact. No multiple OS installs, not even to play with, and certainly without the Windows virus. I have learned to stick with the LTS releases and have also learned to wait until .1 release on those. It's very stable and secure and gives me what I need, while being easy to maintain.

With each LTS release I keep my basic partitioning scheme, although before I did the 16.04.1 clean install, I did adjust the / partition by a couple of GBs. The clean install pretty much leaves the /home partitions alone, but I can always recover data files in case of inattention to detail or typing errors! I have plenty of room on the 250GB drive for future expansion of multimedia interests; new pictures from one of our cameras, "oldies" music, info files for other hobbies, and videos.

I don't hate BTRFS, and may make use of it one day, but right now it's unnecessary. Life is full as it is!

[GreyGeek]

Full indeed! Even retired there's not enough time to do what one wants to do!

[oshunluvr]

jglen490, I mostly agree with your assessment. If you're comfortable with your current file system abilities and don't have the need to multi-boot or care about free space distribution you won't use many of the benefits of btrfs.

The one possible benefit I didn't mention that both Grey Geek and myself rely heavily on is the capability to "roll back" to a snapshot. Briefly, a snapshot of a subvolume can functionally replace it's source subvolume. As an example, if your install resides in a btrfs subvolume and you're about to attempt something you might consider even marginally risky - a major version upgrade to Plasma 5 or even a release upgrade to the next Kubuntu version or even just a video card driver upgrade - you simply make a snapshot of your install subvolume (takes literally less than a second) before doing the task. Once complete, if all is well delete the snapshot. If not, delete the now-damaged source subvolume and boot to the snapshot.

Regardless, if or when you decide to try out btrfs, check back with us.

[jglen490]

Thanks, oshunluvr! I appreciate the input, and I get what you're pointing out. That's definitely a useful enterprise level feature, and it's similar to what was being used on Linux servers at my previous job. Nonetheless, it's a needless complexity with the system I currently have; or at least needlessly complex to go to right now with my very stable, and small, configuration. It might be worthwhile to consider when the next LTS comes out.

As you said, stay tuned!

[steve7233]

Before my system got hosed buy the ubuntu update, I installed the BTRFS tools package. When I tried to run it a message came up that said Sorry your system is incomptable or something like that.

[GreyGeek]

Before my system got hosed buy the ubuntu update, I installed the BTRFS tools package. When I tried to run it a message came up that said Sorry your system is incomptable or something like that.

As it so happened my Crystal Ball just happened to break earlier today!

There is no advice we can offer you based on the information you gave us. With every first post of or in a thread you need to include the make and model of your hardware and the version of Linux you have installed, along with any non-repository changes you made. You can't expect the volunteers who help you to remember your specific details. Also include screen captures, if possible, if displayed messages, or consult the various logs in /var/logs that can be accessed by Ksystemlog, dmesg or some editor. The dpkg.log will give you the install msgs made during a package install.

You didn't say what update, or which btrfs tools package you installed and where you got it from. I used Btrfs-tools and it worked fine. I upgraded to btrfs-progs, from the PPA named btrfs-progs posted by Glenn Washburn, and it works faultlessly as well.