XFS /home?

[jpenguin]

I'm trying out geckolinux in KVM, and I find it interesting that by default it format /home as XFS & root as BtrFS. Would you ever leave /home as XFS instead of changing it to Ext4?

[Snowhog]

Well, some would opine that ext4 is 'long in the tooth' and so, why not? I on the otherhand like using ext4; it's "tried and true".

[oshunluvr]

I don't know anything about GeckoLinux or it's "mission" but in my opinion, the odd choice was to use btrfs for root but not home. I can't see the advantage to ext4 for anything other than it's the default. It totally lacks modern features.

AFAIK, the primary advantage to XFS is parallel execution of I/O functions and "guaranteed rate" I/O (filesystem bandwidth reserved for operations so there's no noticeable slow-down during heavy multi-RW operations) which would make it a good choice for databases but I don't see why that would benefit a desktop user. At least it has some of the features of btrfs - COW, snapshots and native backup features. One notable difference is it cannot be shrunk, only expanded.

I guess the devs felt like XFS would offer better performance for it's users. IMO, btrfs is the better choice for both. Much easier to use and scale and better handling of multiple device arrays - and don't forget subvolumes.

[oshunluvr]

Looks like the filesystem decision was made by openSuse, which Gecko is based on. From the openSUse forum on why XFS was used:

Sure can
btrfs on / primarily to leverage the full power of snapper for system snapshots and rollback, including 'boot to snapshot' which is in Tumbleweed. http://snapper.io/
XFS for data, because XFS is a damn good filesystem for data and doesn't have the few edge cases that btrfs does where it sometimes isn't the best filesystem for certain profiles
for example, databases, lots of tiny writes have a sometimes will slow down a btrfs filesystem... that said, current Tumbleweed builds disable COW for those subvolumes that are going to contain databases..so..yeah.. let me rephase
XFS for data, because you probably don't need the extra features BTRFS brings for your data.

[jpenguin]

I use BTRFS as root, there's only reason I use ext4 for /home is because there are good ext4 drivers for Mac & windows.

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[oshunluvr]

I use BTRFS as root, there's only reason I use ext4 for /home is because there are good ext4 drivers for Mac & windows.

Makes sense, I hadn't thought of that as I use neither on my computer.

I do use Windows for work, but file transfer is done by network.