this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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What filesystem is currently best for a single nvme drive with regard to performance read/write as well as stability/no file loss? ext4 seems very old, btrfs is used by RHEL, ZFS seems to be quite good... what do people tend to use nowadays? What is an arch users go-to filesystem?

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[–] ryannathans 3 points 1 year ago

Ext4 for general pupose linux. Zfs for bsd network drives

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It depends, for a normal user? Ext4, maybe btrfs because in terms of stability is the best {but u lose some functions like the ability to make a swap file, wich today isn't really that useful, but u lose the ability to make one). Want something really fast fort large files? ZFS, but if u experience an energy loss it could be really catastrophic.

Ext in general is so good that even to this day android it's still using EXT2, 2!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

First of all, thanks this r news for me. But I don't think is a good idea to use the swap file in btrfs.

It is supported since kernel 5.0

There are some limitations of the implementation in BTRFS and Linux swap subsystem:

filesystem - must be only single device

filesystem - must have only single data profile

subvolume - cannot be snapshotted if it contains any active swapfiles

swapfile - must be preallocated (i.e. no holes)

swapfile - must be NODATACOW (i.e. also NODATASUM, no compression)

With active swapfiles, the following whole-filesystem operations will skip swapfile extents or may fail:

balance - block groups with extents of any active swapfiles are skipped and reported, the rest will be processed normally

resize grow - unaffected

resize shrink - works as long as the extents of any active swapfiles are outside of the shrunk range

device add - if the new devices do not interfere with any already active swapfiles this operation will work, though no new swapfile can be activated afterwards

device delete - if the device has been added as above, it can be also deleted

device replace - ditto
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yes, there are some limitations to be aware of, with how it interacts with certain features. But EXT4 doesn't have any of those features at all. It doesn't have CoW, or balance, or multi-device, or snapshots.

If the filesystem, is single-device, and you have the swapfile on it's own nocow subvolume, preallocate the swapfile, and don't try to take snapshots of it, it should be fine.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

ext4.

Never used arch; just slackware and then enterprise linux.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Don't use ZFS. It's that simple. It was always more of a buzzword than anything else, I feel, and the licensing issues just make it a non-starter for me. -Linux Torvalds

Realistically you aren't going to notice what filesystem you use, be it XFS, ext4, etc. Aside from fringe cases it really doesn't matter. Don't waste brain cycles on the decision.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

For both my home server and desktop I use XFS for root and ZFS (in some variety of raid or mirror) for /home and data storage. Any time I've tried btrfs for root (such as default fedora), inevitably it poops the bed. At this point, I stay far away from btrfs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I’ve been using XFS on top of LVM for years with no issues.

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