Arch Linux

shoelesshunter

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2014-05-18

Posts: 289

[solved] btrfs raid1 in a laptop

I have a laptop. It came with a small nvme ssd installed. I want to upgrade it to 2TB, M.2 nvme but I would also like to mirror it with a 2TB SATA ssd (via the SATA III bay).

Am I being an idiot here? Considering my last machine was a 2008 Dell Inspiron with a 230GB SATA II, I'm not real picky about performance. But I really want redundancy and btrfs scrubs since I have limited backup access. I have experienced bitrot before.

Last edited by shoelesshunter (2021-03-08 00:38:44)

Ferdinand

Member

From: Norway

Registered: 2020-01-02

Posts: 331

Re: [solved] btrfs raid1 in a laptop

Certainly not an idiot, I'd say but however you set this up I think you'd loose the speed advantage of the M.2 NVMe as a RAID1 can't be faster than the slowest disk (this is how I understand it, I may be wrong).

I would consider saving a little money, keeping the smaller M.2 NVMe for the OS, use the 2TB SATA SSD for data, and then buy an external HDD for the money you saved on not buying another NVMe - and then back up the internal disks to the external HDD using rsync or something like that. Simpler setup, but you'll get a more responsive computer.

Last edited by Ferdinand (2021-03-07 14:00:17)

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shoelesshunter

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2014-05-18

Posts: 289

Re: [solved] btrfs raid1 in a laptop

well, wouldn't work. I checked the specs on this rig, and it only supports nvme up to 526Mb and SATA up to 2TB. I can't even find a fast 2TB 2.5" HDD drive. I have a 1TB WD Black HDD I'll be using and mount a user subvol at ~/ then partition the rest for swap. right now I have swap on the ssd and that will kill it fast.