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?

    • SinJab0n@mujico.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      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
      
      • LaggyKar
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        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.