Arch Linux

airkoala

Member

Registered: 2025-12-04

Posts: 1

Advice/suggestions wanted on migrating to btrfs

hi all. i have a truly cursed partition scheme at the moment for reasons i have no recollection of anymore. here's a glimpse, judge for yourself:

~ ❯ lsblk -o NAME,MOUNTPOINTS
NAME        MOUNTPOINTS
nvme0n1     
├─nvme0n1p1 /efi
├─nvme0n1p2              # MS reserved
├─nvme0n1p3 /mnt/windows # windows C:
├─nvme0n1p4              # some windows bs
├─nvme0n1p5 /
└─nvme0n1p6 /boot
nvme1n1     
├─nvme1n1p1                         # MS reserved
├─nvme1n1p2 /mnt/4TB                # windows D:
└─nvme1n1p3 /home/airkoala/Videos   # a generic media partition
            /home/airkoala/Pictures # these are bind mounted
            /home/airkoala/Media
            /home/airkoala/Games
            /home/airkoala/Documents
            /home/airkoala/Audio
            /mnt/Media

as you can see, its a dual boot system but i want to get rid of the windows partitions entirely and have a single btrfs volume spanning both of my drives. i am currently using ext4. i'd like to avoid reinstalling if i can because im lazy. here's what my plan is so far:

1. wipe all partitions except /dev/nvme0n1p5 (root) and /dev/nvme1n1p3 (media)

2. create new btrfs partitions in the empty spaces of both drives and a new btrfs volume with the partitions

3. copy everything from old ext4 root to new root and copy everything from old media partition to the home directory in the new volume with rsync -a

4. delete the last 2 partitions and add those to the volume

i dont have any experience with btrfs except for what i could gather from reading the docs and archwiki and so would appreciate any thoughts or suggestions on how i can make the migration smoother.

not sure if this sort of post is allowed here but i dont know where else to ask.

cheers

-thc

Member

Registered: 2017-03-15

Posts: 1,066

Re: Advice/suggestions wanted on migrating to btrfs

hi all. i have a truly cursed partition scheme at the moment for reasons i have no recollection of anymore

It's not that bad and pretty straightforward.

wipe all partitions except /dev/nvme0n1p5 (root) and /dev/nvme1n1p3 (media)

Wiping "/efi" and "/boot" would turn your PC into a brick.

create new btrfs partitions in the empty spaces of both drives and a new btrfs volume with the partitions

delete the last 2 partitions and add those to the volume

AFAIK only file systems with volume management capabilities like ZFS can do that. And before you ask - that doesn't mean BTRFS subvolumes.

i dont have any experience with btrfs except for what i could gather from reading the docs and archwiki and so would appreciate any thoughts or suggestions on how i can make the migration smoother.

From what I can gather you should probably consider a fresh install instead.