Subj : Re: Windows vs Linux
To   : claw
From : boraxman
Date : Sun Apr 24 2022 19:41:27

 cl>  bo> Was that a memory mapped hard disk?  BTRFS does what lvm does, combin
 cl>  bo> disks. With btrfs you can simply make the filesystem span multiple di
 cl>  bo> without having any layer underneath to abstract the partitions/disks.
 cl> 
 cl> I have never played around with BTRFS and have thought about it.  Is it
 cl> very difficult to get setup initially?  And afterwards is it as stable
 cl> as just using the old ext4?  
 cl> 
 cl> DrClaw

Formatting a partition or drive as BTRFS is the same as any other filesystem. Just use mkfs.btrfs, and if you want, you can have multiple partitions or drives instead of just one.  Use the -d and -m options to specify whether you want raid0, raid1, raid5 or single (of you don't want the default).  Thats it.

There is a btrfs tool that is used to manage it, to create snapshots, add or remove disks, balance the filesystem and so on.

As for stability, BTRFS has a bad reputation, but I think this is largely due to early years when it was less reliable.  There isn't a filesystem around where you can't find someone who will say it will eat your data.   I've had a good experience, and actually have had it save my butt a couple of times. The fsck program that comes with it isn't really capable of fixing a corrupt system, so backups are important.  I haven't lost data to BTRFS, and there is some data I have, which I would have lost if it were any other filesystem.

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