BTRFS vs EXT2/3/4

[Clarity]

Lately there is a lot of noise on the Internet of replaciing BTRFS for Linux booting, projects and usage.

Thougths from you on benefits or disadvantages

[dancytron]

Barry has done some stuff with it.

viewtopic.php?t=11029

[bigpup]

What is BTRFS.

Btrfs (B-tree file system) is a modern copy-on-write (COW) file system for Linux that offers several advanced features. It's designed to address limitations found in older file systems like ext4, while providing better scalability, reliability, and flexibility. Here are some of its key features:

Copy-on-write (COW): Btrfs uses COW for all operations, meaning when data is written to the disk, the old data is not overwritten. Instead, new blocks are allocated, and metadata is updated. This prevents data corruption from crashes or power failures.

Snapshots: Btrfs can create snapshots of the file system at any given time. Snapshots are read-only copies of the file system, allowing users to preserve the state of their system without duplicating the data. This is useful for backups or system recovery.

Subvolumes: A subvolume is a part of the file system that is treated like a separate file system. It can have its own settings (e.g., mount options) and supports snapshots and compression.

Built-in RAID support: Btrfs supports RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) functionality natively. It allows for creating RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, and even more advanced setups like RAID 5 and RAID 6, providing fault tolerance and data redundancy.

Compression: Btrfs can automatically compress data on the fly using algorithms like zlib, LZO, or zstd, reducing the storage space needed for files.

Checksums: Data and metadata are checksummed, meaning Btrfs can detect and correct data corruption (such as bit rot) by comparing the checksums to the stored data.

Online Defragmentation: Btrfs allows defragmentation of the file system while it's in use, optimizing the storage layout without downtime.

Flexible resizing: Btrfs allows for the dynamic resizing of volumes. You can add or remove disks from the file system without taking the system offline.

While Btrfs has many advantages, it's worth noting that it's still a relatively young file system compared to others like ext4. Though it has matured significantly, it may not be suitable for all use cases yet, particularly on production systems that require maximum stability.

It's widely used in environments like data storage solutions, backup systems, and systems that benefit from snapshotting or volume management features.

[bigpup]

For Puppy to use it, the BTRFS-progs and tools would need to be in Puppy.

From issues in the past, with adding support for file systems.

Any of the Puppy specific programs, that work specifically with file systems, will need to be updated to support BTRFS.

[mistfire]

QuickPup64 RC2 now supports BTRFS formatted puppy save file (experimental).
viewtopic.php?p=143340#p143340

[mistfire]

For Puppy to use it, the BTRFS-progs and tools would need to be in Puppy.

From issues in the past, with adding support for file systems.

Any of the Puppy specific programs, that work specifically with file systems, will need to be updated to support BTRFS.

BTRFS was a different one. It does not allow to format directly on image file. It truly requires a block device to format a disk image by using losetup. Also fscking BTRFS was different too. The most common was mount the btrfs device or image file then perform filesystem check. Unmounted filesystem check is only used if the BTRFS device/image file was unmountable