Thoughts on using BtrFS for media storage?

XtrmGmr99 · 2011-02-01 05:38:52

I've been playing with the idea of switching over to the new BtrFS since it's posied to be the next big thing. It supposedly handles small and large files very well, and I like the idea of snapshots and other interesting features about it...

The only thing hold me back is the fact that there is no fsck utility, and it will be running my media collection with hundreds of GBs worth of movies and music with no real backup -- not a fun prospect of replacing it all.

Just popping in to get some thoughts on it.If the filesystem gets corrupted (due to power outage, etc), I'm pretty much screwed until they release a fsck utility, right?

tpolich · 2011-02-01 05:46:32

XtrmGmr99 wrote:

my media collection with hundreds of GBs worth of movies and music with no real backup

Don't use a file system that's under development unless your willing to risk it. The chances of losing data should be very low but from what I can tell you don't have any real reason to use btrfs over ext4.

tl;dr unless you have a real need use ext4 for now.

Last edited by tpolich (2011-02-01 05:47:07)

jOaNbE · 2011-02-01 09:44:06

Just back up your data properly (as in not relying on file system snapshots see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Backup ) you can definitely try btrfs. It's pretty sweet Just be prepared...

broken pipe · 2011-02-01 13:03:18

all of my partitions and hds are formated in btrfs. power breakdown and system crashs never corrupted any of them! pretty stable but mind your files!

ANOKNUSA · 2011-02-01 15:01:45

I think the important question would be: Why no real backup? I'd be more worried about having copies of my hundreds of gigs of coolness before using the "latest and greatest" tech available. You'll need to school yourself in all the new ins and outs of the filesystem--through research and experience--and at any given point could potentially botch something.

XtrmGmr99 · 2011-02-04 05:04:24

ANOKNUSA wrote:

I think the important question would be: Why no real backup? I'd be more worried about having copies of my hundreds of gigs of coolness before using the "latest and greatest" tech available. You'll need to school yourself in all the new ins and outs of the filesystem--through research and experience--and at any given point could potentially botch something.

Simply put, because the server has the most storage space in the house. Where else am I going to back up to? Online backups are an option, but it costs money and my bandwidth sucks -- would take a year or so to upload everything (guestimation).

But I guess I should just stick to ext4 until BtrFS matures just a tad bit more (or at least until they ahve a fsck utility available). I'll use it as my home partition for a few months and see how well it works out...

extofme · 2011-02-05 08:49:55

well i've ran btrfs on ~5 machines (server/2 laptops/work machine/netbook) since .32 without even the slightest issue from btrfs itself. i've only crashed and lost data once, and it was my own fault because i was doing things to the FS that no sane mortal would (crazy --bind mounts thru the special directories...) during development of the mkinitcpio-btrfs hook.

which... btw... is pending a massive update that will bring managed snapshots, a git-like interface, kernel-rollbacks, and likely... remote "folding" backups (basically rsync --inplace + snapshots :-)

fsck will be available anytime now; lead devel has been working on that primary for quite awhile. so even though btrfs is "technically" unsupported, if you brose around a bit, most have great results, and it's starting to beats the pants off of every other FS in terms of performance... in .38 we will get LZO compression = fast fast fast.

C Anthony

Arch Linux

#1 2011-02-01 05:38:52

Thoughts on using BtrFS for media storage?

#2 2011-02-01 05:46:32

Re: Thoughts on using BtrFS for media storage?

#3 2011-02-01 09:44:06

Re: Thoughts on using BtrFS for media storage?

#4 2011-02-01 13:03:18

Re: Thoughts on using BtrFS for media storage?

#5 2011-02-01 15:01:45

Re: Thoughts on using BtrFS for media storage?

#6 2011-02-04 05:04:24

Re: Thoughts on using BtrFS for media storage?

#7 2011-02-05 08:49:55

Re: Thoughts on using BtrFS for media storage?

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