[arch-general] BTRFS, a good choice for /?

[Gergely Imreh]

On 22 September 2010 14:53, Nilesh Govindarajan <lists at itech7.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> After true multilib support came for arch, I reformatted / as jfs to
> install arch64.
> But somehow, I feel my system is slow (in spite of regular fscks on
> every ten mounts and using deadline scheduler) as compared to arch32 &
> ext4.
> I'm thinking of using btrfs on /, is it stable to the extent that I
> can use it on /?
> I guess a lot of you guys are using it here?

I was playing with btrfs a month or two ago, and I wouldn't recommend
using for anything crucial just yet.
When it works, it is great. Fast, compact, useful. But it broke on me
more than one time, and it seems the support tools are not totally up
for the task at the moment.
Some examples:
Btrfs does not handle disk-full situations gracefully, just craps
itself. And when I say "full" it does not have to be completely, on
the partition I tried there were times when when a few hundred MB were
still free and still gave up.
Does need rebalancing occasionally (maybe I should say on a regular
basis for its own good, freeing up space, restoring performance) and
that process did break on me too, leaving an unusable partition.

I really want to like btrfs, that's why I tried, but I think there's
still a way to go until I trust / with it.... Let me know if anyone
has better experience than me.

Cheers,
   Greg