Yet another ... which Linux file systems ? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2020, 03:38:30 am
content: Planning to replace the aging swmbo desktop, and she practically used it just for casual documents work like word processing, spreadsheet and browsing. And also she does a lot of photos & videos backup from her phone into the desktop storage. And casually plays old windows games.And no, no cloud storage discussion please.Me my self and her are Linux noob, but decades of Windows experiences.Planned configuration :- Quad core ryzen- Memory 16 GB(ECC or non ECC, subject to final decision)... done deal, ECC it is.- Boot drive NVME 1TB- Storage 3 x 8TB (Raid 5 or RAID-Z1)OS , will tryforcingluring her into Linux and probably with Windows VM.Regarding the RAID, I'm fully aware as this is just to reduce down times, we have an air gapped external HD 16TB which we do routine monthly backup.Also regarding desktop RAID, I'm fully familiar since early days of fake raid using Intel chip-set up to dedicated LSI Megaraid, its just I'm getting tired having to rely on the controller as single point of failure, beside its only for casual desktop usage, not high end enterprise grade server, CMIIW.Questions :This regarding the file system :Option 1Boot drive : EXT43 x 8TB : On MDADMOption 2Boot drive : EXT43 x 8TB : ZFS RAID-Z1Option 3Boot drive : ZFS3 x 8TB : ZFS RAID-Z1... option 1 is decided.Linux distro decision ... latest Ubuntu LTS ?Regarding physical drives nvme + 3 HD decision, its already fixed and purchased.Or .. any other suggestions , critics maybe on my plan ?

author: greenpossum
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2020, 03:56:41 am
content: Unless you are skilled and know it, go with the filesystem your preferred distro uses, you'll have less hassles that way. Performance isn't going be an issue for your workload.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2020, 05:40:20 am
content: I recently set up a Linux system to be my daily use replacement for a Windows 7 machine. I went with whatever Debian uses by default and never gave it a second thought.I would consider using those 3 8TB drives as basis for a FreeNAS set up, but that would mean getting another computer suitable for that purpose.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2020, 06:31:27 am
content: ZFS can do many things that ext4 can't, and by design is more reliable, definitely ZFS. I will go for Option 3, or maybe an Option 4: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS + 1TB (ZFS OS) + 8TB ZFS + 2x8TB ZFS RAID1 powered only during backups.For the enumerated applications, there should be no need to use Windows VMs.

author: 0db
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2020, 10:56:05 am
content: Ext4 in my experiences was pure crap.

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2020, 11:07:40 am
content: In the past I used Reiserfs because that was the default with SuSE Linux.After mr. Reiser murdered his wife, they switched to ext3 and then to ext4.Now they use btrfs as default but I don't trust it and continue to use ext4.The reason is, ext4 has never caused me any dataloss ever, and we have quiet some power interruptions hereI have been thinking about to buy an ups, but my impression so far is that ext4 is very robust.I'm using a mix of traditional harddrives and solid state (Samsung Pro).

author: 0db
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2020, 12:18:20 pm
content: I do trust xfs v4, and I really like its checking/repairing tools.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2020, 12:53:58 pm
content: ext4 is fine for a desktop system.

author: PKTKS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2020, 01:01:34 pm
content: Quote from: BravoV on May 05, 2020, 03:38:30 amI am a long term *NIX user (include linux BSD and older stuff HPUX AIX SCO..)But recent hardware is your biggest concern - not the file system.I will not setup a BOOT drive based on NVM sticks nowadays - to be safeI would even consider problems of SWAP on SSD devices as a big issue.So I would setup using regular HD (cheap TB available on SATA 6G)That is unlike to have a single issue.IMHO - ? use a plain good SATA HD for your boot devicewith regular ext3 - SAFE , FAST, BUG proof and very reliable.The rest options has too many issues to discuss here..But as a DISTRIBUTION ? I would radically consider to be** FAR AWAY AS POSSIBLE OF ANY systemd DISTRO **systemd is a total crap security hazardTry any ARCH based feature rich for newbies likehttps://endeavouros.com/IF POSSIBLE a DEVUAN (DEBIAN without systemd)order of magnitude better than any *BUNTUwhich mostly is kinda goonie made...Paul

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2020, 02:03:37 pm
content: Option 1: ext4 + MD.Watch out for these gotchas (I run this shit in production):1. ZFS on linux is buggy as fuck. Avoid it like the plague.2. MD on spinning rust takes AN AGE to rebuild parity. On a 6TiB RAID5 SATA volume, expect 3-4 days at least. It's quicker to put one of those disks on the shelf and run a 3TiB RAID1 with a hot disk on standby plugged into the unit ready to roll.3. Bringing that along, make sure you have a spare disk or two lying around NOW because they almost always disappear from the market instantly when you get a disk failure.4. Make sure you know ALL recovery scenarios and know how to use mdadm before you even think about putting data on the volume. Also make sure you know how to deal with a hosed systemd and mdadm setup because it almost certainly will happen one day.5. If you're running MD buy a UPS because a big hunk of times a power outage will cause a full fsck which takes forever on huge volumes which are populated.Large volume stuff now I prefer to keep it off the node and on a black box NAS (synology ones are nice) on a UPS and keep the root disk a disposable NVMe jobby.Really the best thing to do is get rid of as much data as possible. It really does help the cost and management headaches.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2020, 07:02:19 pm
content: I run XFS on MD raid at home, it's OK. I don't even remember the exact reasons for choosing it over ext4. I think ext4 may be easier to recover from screwups because it has a somewhat simpler structure.Quote from: bd139 on May 05, 2020, 02:03:37 pmTo each his own, I guess. I would never trust that rubbish so I set up RAID autodetect for my root partition. Unfashionable but effectiveThe whole thing is less of a problem with some noncritical storage partition, though.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2020, 07:33:51 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on May 05, 2020, 02:03:37 pmThis is absolutely not true in my experience.Quite contrary. ZFS worked perfectly for me, with zero intervention for about two years now. I used it mostly with Ubuntu, but also with Fedora for about half a year. No problems so far, no maintenance required, not even after power failures (there were about 10-20 mains power failures during the last 2 years of ZFS).Of course, in the last 2 years there were countless updates in the the Linux kernel or in the zfs tools, but never encountered any ZFS bug so far, and never lost a file.Do you have some examples for why ZFS was so bad for you? What bugs do you encountered?

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2020, 08:11:13 pm
content: Well there was the absolute shit show that was 0.7.7 in 2018Create a new file, get ENOSPC and any subsequent files in the dirent were orphaned and disappeared after a remount and/or reboot. Pretty major data loss bug that which showed exactly what little care and regression testing went into it. I had to spend a good 3 days unfucking something that was victim of that.Then there was the issue where you issue a rollback and it blew the kernel out in mid 2019.Big nope after that.On Solaris / FreeBSD yes that's fine. On Linux, no!

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2020, 08:15:40 pm
content: Quote from: magic on May 05, 2020, 07:02:19 pmXFS is nasty. I've had all sorts of problems, particularly on filesystems backed by other volume management systems (3PAR / EBS). Sometimes, on some kernels, and depending on what phase the moon is in, if you xfs_growfs on a high inode usage filesystem it doesn't update the inode free list until you remount which you can't do when there are 1000 threads with FD's open on it. Live resize my arse

author: 0db
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2020, 10:12:04 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on May 05, 2020, 08:15:40 pmThat's bullshit. Which version? XFS v5? v4? v3? and some kernels, which version?

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2020, 10:19:43 pm
content: CentOS 7.2-7.6 kernel. I don’t have the version numbers handy as it’s 23:20 here and I’ll be fucked if I’m digging it out now.I actually had a bugzilla ticket open with RH on it.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 03:01:48 am
content: Little can replace true hardware RAID, except a few hundred or so dollars that remain in your pocket. Though I do get the single point of failure thing.ZFS is nice, but I have a personal belief that if a task calls for ZFS, that task calls for FreeBSD. If you can't do it on FreeBSD, evaluate why you need ZFS.Wish to respectfully disagree with PKTKS, root on NVMe is perfectly fine, and I can't think of a single reason to use ext3 over ext4. NVMe drives are perfectly reliable, and if you're worried about swap degradation just don't put a swap partition on it.I think the bottom line in general, though, is you'd be much better off centralizing your storage, and if speed truly requires it (I can't think of a single pedestrian reason why) 10GbE. Adding RAID or ZFS to a desktop environment just adds more places for it to go wrong, and on a person not used to dealing with Linux, it's likely prudent to eliminate as many of those as possible. Honestly I'm not sure what she's storing, but I'd swap out those drives for another 1TB NVMe SSD or even 1-2 2TB NVMe SSDs, as that would go beyond what most people could reasonably store before seriously considering some sort of network attached storage.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 05:52:52 am
content: 1st, thank you for all replies made, really appreciate the inputs given.I will just do selective quoting and reply where I see necessary below.Quote from: blueskull on May 05, 2020, 03:47:48 amWell, mostly are personal files, for big size like photos & videos, while important documents which are quite small compared to photos/videos, mostly are secured & backed up on external media .. "AND" ... compressed in cloud for portability reason(no, please stop discuss cloud thingy again). We just don't or never have the need to access our family photos & videos while roamed out side our house, and I guess never in the near future too.So regarding the importance of redundancy, my & wifey's data are pretty secured, at least to our requirement, and it has been for decades, and yes, we experienced and survived hardware failures like dead HDs or dead mobos while using fake raid multiple times in decades, so far we've survived and pretty content with our current strategy.One most important thing we've learned, keep diligently and routinely backup important stuffs to external media, thats all we need.While the OS and Apps, we consider it is "not" important/crucial, they can be scratched and re-image/re-install if necessary, infact I've been doing this routinely a full OS re-installation or most of the times re-imaging the whole boot/OS/apps drive for decades.Old farts must be familar with Norton Ghost, yep, I've been using imaging tools since DOS era up to now in Windows with the free Macrium Reflect, it just work flawlessly.Quote from: blueskull on May 05, 2020, 03:47:48 amYep, decision made, ECC memory is coming as Ryzen supports it, even not officially.Quote from: blueskull on May 05, 2020, 03:47:48 amI'm getting convinced, for the NVME boot drive, EXT4 is the way, especially for the ease of recovery.Quote from: rdl on May 05, 2020, 05:40:20 amBoth me & wifey, had experienced NAS few years ago, and we both decided to prefer local storage.Quote from: RoGeorge on May 05, 2020, 06:31:27 amThere is an adventurous side of me that other option that I didn't reveal, it is for the RAID-Z1 to use a cheap 250/512GB SSD as cache. Not final yet, still keep learning, reading and comparing options.Quote from: PKTKS on May 05, 2020, 01:01:34 pmSorry Paul, probably I'm the one of those crowd that believe and experienced ... "once you're NVMEd, you will never look back" .. type of people.Btw, both our desktops are covered & protected by UPS, and yes, they work flawlessly too when experienced power outages.Keep going please ...

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 07:55:20 am
content: A point actually on RAID. We found over 5 years that a single decent quality SSD has a better reliability outcome than two mechanical disks in RAID1.Decent quality means Samsung Pro / HPE here, not "crucial instead of WD green"

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 08:20:09 am
content: Quote from: Karel on May 05, 2020, 11:07:40 amWe run a lot of servers and workstations on SUSE Enterprise Linux which uses BTRFS as default file system, and it worked absolutely fine so far. Which is expected, after all BTRFS is fully supported by SUSE.At home I run a small server using openSUSE Leap, with all my data on a large BTRFS volume. No problems.BTRFS has some issues with its built-in RAID levels (RAID 5/6 is still not considered stable) but you can setup BTRFS on top of lvm RAID anyways.QuoteBack in the days when WindowsNT 3.51 and 4.0 (both which didn't support ACPI and didn't switch off the computer after shutdown) was still a thing I tended to didn't bother with shutting the OS down but just hit the power button, causing a hard power off. I was well aware that this might well corrupt my NTFS file system (and I had backups of my data anyways) but for some reason I never had any problems.However, this doesn't mean it's a good idea to power off the computer without shutting down the OS, and there's a good chance that eventually that bad practice would have catched up with me (even though in my case the actual damage would be negligible).The same is true for ext4.So yes, if you have regular power interruptions then some UPS would be a good idea. You might want to consider avoiding the usual cheap standby models and go for an active one, because if your local power network is so unreliable then it's likely you'll see a lot of brown-outs and power fluctuations, too.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 08:36:02 am
content: Quote from: bd139 on May 05, 2020, 08:11:13 pmAt work we looked at ZFS on Linux for a specific project but while I don't know the details (as this was done by our Linux guys) our experience was quite similar to above. And that was shortly before Coronavirus (August 2019).QuoteWell, let's say it's stable. There are still some inherent issues in ZFS which can make it problematic.Quote from: bd139 on May 05, 2020, 08:15:40 pmIf I remember right that bug has been fixed I think 4 or 5 years ago, in any ase it's no longer an issue.XFS in general has an excellent track record, which isn't surprising considering that it was developed for enterprise use by SiliconGraphics back in the days, and after SGI made it open source since then has been maintained with a lot of support from Red Hat.XFS is probably the most reliable file system for Linux that exists.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 09:10:43 am
content: Quote from: PKTKS on May 05, 2020, 01:01:34 pmWhy? Because, frankly, even consumer grade NVMe sticks are much more reliable than hard drives - and a lot faster.There's no reason to put swap on slow spinning rust if you don't have to.QuoteSo your advice is to put the OS on a single TB sized SATA hard drive? Seriously?Quoteext3 is reliable, but so are modern file systems as XFS and BTRFS.One thing that ext3 is however is obsolete. If you really have to use something which originates from the old UFS of back then then at least use the current implementation ext4. Which works as well as ext3.QuoteI'm sorry but that reads a lot as if your last contact with Linux or hardware has been in 2003. And your aversion against anything flash is not rooted in reality.I know that there is a general (mostly ideological) hate for systemd but I have no problems with it (I actually prefer it over the old init system, because it's more efficient and cleaner than the System V Init mess), and it's now the de-facto standard so you might as well getting used to it. The idea that systemd is a security hazard is nonsense, too.I also would recommend to go with a common distro unless the pirmary goal is to make the OS a purpose in itself, which it will become due to the time and effort it takes to essentially copy what the various distros have already done so the user doesn't have to.Having siad that, one thing I can agree with your advice of staying away from Ubuntu, simply because of the various bugs and annoyances it comes with (there's a reason why Ubuntu is regarded as 'the Windows under the Linux variants').Personally, I keep with what's good enough for mission-critical businesses, i.e. the free variants of enterprise-grade Linux from Red Hat and SUSE (which are CentOS and openSUSE Leap). Especially openSUSE makes it easy because many of the things which require command line use in other distros can be done through YAST, SUSE's unique administration tool. It's by far the most user friendly distribution that there is.Quote from: bd139 on May 06, 2020, 07:55:20 amI can confirm that. We use HPE and Dell, where most of the drives we get are either intel DC Series or Micron enterprise-class SSDs. We also have a lot of older HGST and intel Pro Series drives, down to very early HGST SSD400S.B SAS drives.We have seen a few of the drives reaching the end of their specified life (i.e. the spare capacity has been eaten up) so they are replaced before they fail, but the number of actual defects has been minuscule compared to what we see for spinning rust (of which we also have a lot).On a personal level, I had a Crucial 32GB SATA something (one of the early consumer SATA SSDs) and two Kingston consumer SATA SSDs which died prematurely (stopped working completely, the Crucial caused data corruption), and a number of older intel SATA SSDs (which I bought 2nd hand) and several Samsung 840 EVO/850EVO reach end of their life (well, they are consumer drives, and thus have very limited write cycles).Right now I only have some spinning rust in my homeserver, where it's connected to a proper HPE Smart Array hardware RAID controller. Everything else in my home which uses mass storage (1 PC, 2 workstations, one Mac, a Macbook Pro and three PC laptops) uses flash.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 01:04:26 pm
content: I've personally used ext4 exclusively for a long time now. Never had any problem.Disclaimer: I'm not claiming ext4 is 100% flawless. Just saying it has worked well for me.As for ZFS, I think there was another specific discussion about it, so not going to comment any further. I would personally not consider using it.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 01:07:21 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on May 06, 2020, 07:55:20 amI have no such comparative experience here. Never used SSDs in RAID configurations so far.I can just remember a pretty bad experience with WD green HDDs (they were low power but rubbish) in RAID 5. They started failing one after another after ~3 years of run time (and that was not heavy use!) Replaced them with WD red HDDs at the time, which are still going strong.

author: radar_macgyver
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 01:25:42 pm
content: My experience administering a small workgroup's servers and workstations:ZFS: I've supported several ZFS NAS installations, all on Linux (all in the 20-40 TB range). I did follow the usual recommendations (lots of RAM, use ECC). The oldest of these was first set up in 2014 and has been working fine since. The ability to create a snapshot, and back up a delta from the last snapshot makes automated data replication very easy. Of course, this is for a centralized data store. Not sure how all these features help in a workstation context.BTRFS: Really like the features, but have been bitten by the incomplete implementation too many times. I suppose it's ok for a single-disk setup. The lack of robust RAID5/6 is well-known. Recently, a server with BTRFS RAID1 lost a disk. I found out that apparently mounting a BTRFS RAID1 with a missing disk will work *once*, after which it will refuse to mount. Also, unlike md, btrfs can lose a RAID1 device silently (no provision for sending notifications). Red Hat/CentOS had good reasons, then, for deprecating btrfs.ext3/4: goto for root fs on workstations and servers. No particular reason other than "it's the default" and that it's worked fine in the past. I usually use SATA SSDs or NVMe, and set up a cron job to rsync the filesystem over to a backup server.

author: PKTKS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 02:01:00 pm
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 06, 2020, 09:10:43 amFirst part TRUE - NVM and SSD are faster than HDDs no moving parts etc.Second part is FALSE - NVM (and SSD which are same thing with interface chip) -** ARE NOT HDs ** (BOLD CAPITAL SHOUTING BIG LETTERS)Several access issues arise as they require translators and emulators chipsto magically resemble HDs (sectors/clusters) on a simple memory.Special files systems stress that and not every BIOS and hardware outthere can even boot out such devices. Actually several BIOS even recognizethe devices during boot.Mileage vary a lot and they are not recommended as safe boot partitionsor swap partitions (they wear out) and several boot managers may failto boot and do things the correct way on them(they just crap the file system).Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 06, 2020, 09:10:43 amPretty much the OP said it is a new income user asking for good directions.On the list:- I would never recommend a new comer using RAID or LVM tools - they are overkill- I would never recommend new users to mess several partitions(like having boot/home/usr/service and FTP/NFS/NAS) spawned acrossseveral devices - THIS THING IS FOR EXPERINCED FOLKS - a lot is neededNew users will have a bad time if anything goes wronglike just booting off the hook to recover different FS and partitions.Just that. A good piece of safe reliable advice having a cheaptrusty HDD booting with zero issues from ANY FUNKY BIOS and boot loader.It works kinda 100% times - recovery is just piece of cakeIS IS SAFER - not fancy and funky but safer choiceQuote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 06, 2020, 09:10:43 amObsolete ? not true. Converting ext3 to ext4 is feasible and simpleExt4 added pretty much just "features" (properties and tidbits) which 90%of casual users will never ever need. The rest pretty much the same.Unless you do need the tidbits of the ext4 file system there is no reasonto use it - recovery from ext3 is simpler and ext3 has less bugs andproblems, recently ext4 suffered a major bug really nasty.Small kernel (like busybox) will have smaller footprint using just ext3.All etx3 will work fine nothing wrong with them- au contrary - it is easier to maintain** UNLESS YOU DO NEED THOSE EXTRA BITS OF ETX4 **and 90% people won't ever need that.Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 06, 2020, 09:10:43 amActually I changed my SCO servers to Slackware about a decade earlier 1993/1995 (kinda)I will not resurrect that crappy systemd issues but some comments are handy:- UNIX is safe fast and reliable because it is based on good practices- one of them is to keep code simple - do one thing and do that well. (stress that)- Those arrogant retarded goonies behind systemd DID THE OPPOSITE OF THAT.- Code security and reliability scales with the amount of code - EXPONENTIALLY- The more code you have the more insecure it is - UNSAFE it is- The goonies DID EXACTLY THAT:- LOOK MA' i will boot in 1 second.. 30 different process(s) in PARALLEL- LOOK MA no hands.. 100 parts of crappy glued code in PARALELL- LOOK MA booting in 1 second all that shit mounting partitions starting everthing- ALL THAT STUFF in one single shot... no hands LOOK MA.. like MS Windows..- We are full of shit - we are sytemdWho cares booting in 1 second?My systems boot systemV in about 2 minutes or moreEVERY PIECE OF STANDARD IS CHECKED -i boot the NAS once a month for serviceWorkstations once per day or 2 or 5I GIVE A SHIT OF BOOTING in 1 second or 1 minuteI GIVE 100x SHIT of messing 30 things in paralell..receipe for retarded gooniesI DO CARE ABOUT A RETARDED GOONIE PILE OF INSECURE CODE having PID 1.I am waiting the day those goonies will release their OWN SYSTEMD KERNELAND FINALLY THEY WILL JUST FUCK OFF that pile of unmaintainable junk ...some folks claim that init has a large footprint.. slow boot..FALSE - my busybox distro runs out even a 486 with 32M of memoryI RUN SYSTEMV OVER A BUSYBOX with a memory footprint less than 32M (yes "M")I am collector as well and that 486 board still boots perfectly fineIt boots with recent kernel libc and runs X server on an ATI 3D RAGE as wellA Master piece of my collection. I have fun with thatand several pieces of recent hardware as wellThey all run fine with the same (**SAME**) BUSYBOX service toolHave funPaul

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 03:16:33 pm
content: We've got I think 280 nodes with root SSDs and swap on the same volumeMuch carnage afoot. Not.Oh and the SAN with SSDs in it too...

author: 0db
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 03:36:38 pm
content: Quote from: PKTKS on May 06, 2020, 02:01:00 pmI had troubles exactly there. There was a topic about that.

author: PKTKS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 03:38:57 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on May 06, 2020, 03:16:33 pmIt works, i am aware of that.When advice for PC GAMERS i do that just that simpleA budget 128 SSD running a flat simple base boot/rootin which for the sake of speed swap is included.But they do wear out. Issues with the controller(which caches/collects read/writes for HD emulation)vary among fabs. and I do use budget SSDs likeWEJINTO KINGDIAN and that things..They all use pretty much the same controller emulatorinside which is mostly also the same of other "brands"Their performance vary a way wide spectrumdepending on several things.No problems- cheap affordable - easy replaceableI don't do that on my reliable workstations..Rather works UP days or more...Just a decision while I can mount those TB HDquite easily with cooling housings..Cheap simpler and reliable? still a single HD for new users.But SSD for new UNIX gamers coming to the party.128 is far than enough for boot partitionPaul

author: PKTKS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 03:42:40 pm
content: Quote from: 0db on May 06, 2020, 03:36:38 pmThere are several topics and issues about that.Unless you need the EXT4 tidbits there is absolute no reasonto use it - it is similar to ext3 (respecting changes in some params)and the "properties" are mostly the problemDepending on what kind of property you will enableyou better do that by FULL FORMAT and pasting a backup image.It depends on lot of small of those "features"But it is possible if your new ext4 is just a simple new tunefs.Paul

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 04:03:45 pm
content: Quote from: PKTKS on May 06, 2020, 02:01:00 pmGreat!Some progress.QuoteI'm sorry but maybe you should shot a bit less and read a bit more careful because I didn't say anything that SSDs are hard drivesAnd if we are at nitpicking, SSD (Solid State Disk) is what the device is called while NVMe (*not* NVM!) is a specification for a command set for accessing flash memory like SSDs over PCIe.QuoteYou may not be aware, but approximately since the very late '90s we have athing called 'LBA' (Logical block Adressing) which does away with the need to work in head, sectors or clusters. LBA predates SSD by many years, and became widespread once hard disks evolved into Gbyte territory. Since then, any cylinders/heads/sectors mapping on hard disks has been mostly virtual, i.e. software definedYou can learn about LBA here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_block_addressingNow, anything made this side of the 2000's which has SATA or SAS ports will use LBA, no matter if hard disk or SSD.QuoteNope. Modern file systems don't really care for disk layouts and use logical sector addressing, like everything else.QuoteThat's nonsense. Pretty much any PC which can boot from a SATA hard drive can do so from a SATA SSD as well. Behind the interface it makes no difference whatsoever.The same is also true for most really old computers using IDE. They can boot fine from a IDE SSD (like the Transcend ones) or from a SATA SSD through a SATA-to-IDE converter.Now, PCIe (and NVMe) is a different topic, since PCIe based SSDs are still quite new BIOS support for booting from it has only been become standard in the lasth three to four years, although some older systems did get PCIe NVMe support retrofitted via BIOS upgrade (like the HP z620 workstation on my desk).QuoteNot really. Outside your mind, the world these days revolves around flash. It's as simple as that. Millions of PCs use SSDs now as boot devices, and SSDs have been in use in servers and storage systems for even longer.There is literally *zero* connection to what's goling on in your mind and reality.Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 06, 2020, 09:10:43 amPretty much the OP said it is a new income user asking for good directions.Just that this isn't good advice, it's far from that.QuoteNah, not really. It's a pain to maintain, yes, but RAID and LVM are pretty straight forward, especially on a distro like openSUSE where everything can be managed within YAST.QuoteNo, it's not, and there is plenty of evidence that shows it's not.Quoteext3 is obsolete, Simple as that. Just it's file size limit (2TB) and filesystem size limit (16TB/32TB) make it insufficient to deal with modern storage demands. There is a wth file directory entries, it doesn't know extends, it doesn't support inode re-allocation, and can be corrupted by running fsck on a lfe file system. It's journals have no checksum. And then there is the fragmentation issue.Yes, it's easy to convert to ext4, because ext4 is just another evolution of ext3.QuoteNot true. Ext4 added major improvements, like journal and metadata checksumming, Extends, and lots of other stuff, aside from improving performance and raising the file size and filsystem size limits.QuoteNo, really not. There is no reason to use ext3 when you can use ext4. Zero. Nada.QuoteMaybe, but unless I missed it the OP wasn't asking for something for a small scale embeddec computer, we're talking about a modern desktop system.QuoteGood for you.I have to revise that comment I made about your last contact with Linux or PC hardware, because 2003 wouldn't be appropriate as you're clearly stuck somewhere in the early '90s.This wouldn't matter much (everyone can do what they want) but in this case you are giving really poor and incorrect advice to someone asking for help, and that is dangerous. I can't remember the last time when I heard or read so many outdated or just plain wrong claims.It's quite honestly frightening to even think about that anyone could really listen to that drivel.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 04:09:32 pm
content: Edit ... replying to PKTKS here...Oh you mean those ext4 tidbits like the massive allocation imrovements, coalesced writes, journal checksumming, fsck that doesn't take forever, online defrag (not that you need that with SSDs) and the above 2TiB file limits...And the SSD comments I'm going to pass on as well. We don't have a single rust disk any more. Not one. Cheap SSDs are a piece of shit just like cheap hard disks were. Decent SSDs have a far far longer lifetime and when they do run out of writes per cell they are still readable! We're talking ~2 petabytes of writes here before failure, early warning of partial failure. Enterprise SSDs even more!Your arguments are pseudoscientific.Edit: a text to read and understand:http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm

author: PKTKS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 04:12:16 pm
content: My dear Wuerstchenhund you are hilarious ...I am too busy to reply all that funky comments.But 2 cents 2 seconds worth.I SELL GAMING PCs with NVM (ouch missing e?) and SSDsand yes UNIX with NVIDIA GPUs.I do that selling repairing and maintaining hardwarepast 40yAlso I am a collector currently having about 35 piecesof very classic and modern items.I know a bit what I am doing... 40y is a long wayCheersPaul

author: PKTKS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 04:15:32 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on May 06, 2020, 04:09:32 pmI do. So far I have not seen a single need for 2TB file.Normal casual users and gamers pretty much will fit in my advicewith a great thanks to the budget and overload burdenBut if you need way above the barrel specs (diverting the OP)we can open a new topic to put the barrel up.That will be even not using etx4... or ext3 but othersAnd BUSYBOX service images are far more trickyI have done that already for my NASPaul

author: 0db
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 04:39:37 pm
content: Quote from: PKTKS on May 06, 2020, 03:42:40 pmThe point of my bad experience was that new kernel >=4.* forced me to use ext4, which silently corrupted my already existing ext3 volume, and, worse still when at some point I tried to convert ext3 to ext4, the kernel sput out unintelligible messages like "Ops -1", while fschk.ext4 didn't found there was a problem under the hood causing a lot of files to get corrupted, and that silently happened for a lot of time before I realized that my filesystem was silently corrupting files.I used ext3 for more than 10 years without a single problem like this, and it happened everything, several and several power interruptions, a lot of kernel panics, I lost files but at least with ext3 messages were clear and neat, and fschk.ext3 always did a great job, identifying serious problems.fschk.ext4, prrrrr, looks like a drunk.

author: PKTKS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 04:51:13 pm
content: Quote from: 0db on May 06, 2020, 04:39:37 pmIt does not. The thing is that you need to have your own kernel.That is way above the OP but it is a REQUIRED step.A custom kernel WITHOUT the extra FS or insteadjust modular (in case I do that on NAS)The BUSYBOX SERVICE IMAGE is also REQUIRED(it is NOT embed computer fro the sake..)(it is a custom self stand alone whole distro for SERVICE)SERVICE images are REQUIRED to maintain complex systemsUnless you have no clue what a SERVICE IMAGE is...dig that together with BUSYBOX.. systemV memory images.Your problem sounds like that last critical ext4 serious bug.Some reports on the forums and the problem took aa while to resolveBuild a custom kernel with ext3 and enxt4 builtinbut format your system for ext4 **ONLY** you will use ext4 featuresext4 is not that all superior as claimed. Somewhat betterbut some bugs as wellPaul

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 04:56:35 pm
content: More cargo culting...I'll take evidence based approach thanks.

author: PKTKS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 05:17:07 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on May 06, 2020, 04:56:35 pmNice about forums is that.overlooking the crap we have serious people on serious onesPaul

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 05:20:09 pm
content: Quote from: PKTKS on May 06, 2020, 04:12:16 pmDito. Hey, another thing we agree on!QuoteGood for you! Looks like you got lost somewhere around 2 decades ago.I have to say I find it terrifying that someone with your knowledge level sells PCs, but hey whatever works for you. The only time I have seen a similar level of misinformation was when I met an anti-vaxxerI, for my part, prefer to stay with reality here on planet Earth.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 05:23:29 pm
content: Quote from: PKTKS on May 06, 2020, 05:17:07 pmErr yeah you’ll find me on them too telling you the same thing.I’m literally paid to look after this shit all day on a massive scale. Not flipping gaming PCs.

author: 0db
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 05:29:32 pm
content: Quote from: PKTKS on May 06, 2020, 04:51:13 pmThat was. Static built-in. But it's the kernel code that sucks.Messages suck, and the debugging of problems does suck.

author: PKTKS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 05:31:54 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on May 06, 2020, 05:23:29 pmDon't underestimate GAMERS.They put a pretty good penny on their hardware..They want fastest best possible shit and they want thaton a regular consumer discard the old basis.Pretty much the more difficult setup is the PC GAMER.On UNIX (aka linux) that is pretty much a long list of choices.Bad choices cost to the reseller more than to the usersAnd they just drop that.Good choice are not easy to spot on that mined field of PC GAMERSand... the hole soft buz behind it.Good dynamic money on that segmentPaul

author: dr.diesel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 05:58:05 pm
content: Quote from: PKTKS on May 06, 2020, 05:31:54 pm

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 06:01:24 pm
content: Quote from: PKTKS on May 06, 2020, 05:31:54 pmYeah I know of gamers. I was a regular attendee at the major LAN party here in the U.K. for years. I’ve got a nice Windows Ryzen gaming desktop too. And it has, shock, an SSD in it !

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 06:02:32 pm
content: Quote from: 0db on May 06, 2020, 04:39:37 pmWell, youcanuse ext3 with kernel 4.x.QuoteI remember that there were a few bugs regarding ext3 filesystems and ext4 support (some of them caused by old bugs in ext3). Kernel 4.x also introduced new ones, but then the change from 3.x to 4.x was massive so naturally when it came out there were quite a few more bugs than usual.QuoteI understand, but here's the thing: ext3 was already obsolete when kernel 4.0 came out (which was in 2015). By then, ext4 has been considered stable for 7 years!!! Had you moved to ext4 before moving to a 4.x kernel based distro then very likely you wouldn't have seen any issues. But you pretty much waited until ext3 support was completely removed from the kernel, which normally only happens some time after something has already been declared as 'deprecated' (which is a not so subtle hint that it's time to move to something newer - now!)The lesson here is that you waited way too long for moving to ext4 and then very likely also in combination with an early release of the brand new 4.x kernel branch (the last bit is an assumption, as most of the ext4 issues were subsequently fixed through later kernel versions by I think around the second half of 2016, so you would be unlikely to have experienced them after that). That's not a good combination.

author: PKTKS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 06:51:13 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on May 06, 2020, 06:01:24 pmSarcasm apart ...every PC GAMER today is mounted at least on an SSDonce some odd BIOS refuse to boot from NVM slots...Some MOBOs combinations work some don'tBut pretty much ALL gamers store their data on HDsI don't know a single one putting games on SSD.They do an expensive SSD purchase for the main OSAnd a second expensive purchase for a huge large HD RAIDmounted typically on those RGB (also expensive) caseswith tempered glass and all that color fan shit ..So your sarcasm is strange as I am not aware of gamersstoring their huge pile of games on SSD and some are justfurious with BIOS that can not boot from NVMs.at the moment things boil down that linePaul

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 09:59:02 pm
content: I have no clue what the heck you're on about, my daily Linux machine which I do regularly use to do serious gaming on is 100% NVMe, and stores all my games perfectly fine. There have never been any issues, and I have systems I could use to easily read the data in the event of an emergency.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2020, 10:15:45 pm
content: Quote from: PKTKS on May 06, 2020, 06:51:13 pmNo modern board with an M.2 slot designed for NVMe usage will fail to boot from an NVMe device. Nor will any modern OS have difficulty with this.QuotePerhaps all gamers in your neck of the woods, where it's still 2006. I don't run any games from an HDD, and most people I know who have gaming-dedicated systems don't even have HDDs in them. Some don't have a single HDD outside of a NAS any more.QuoteYou've just been made aware by several gamers and IT professionals. You should perhaps listen to those of us who live in the 21st century for once.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 04:50:48 am
content: As Brazil where PKTKS lives is one of the most expensive country for imported electronics, cause the gov. charges hefty amount of import tax.Maybe this shaped the commoner's perception there on what is decent and enough for buying a computer.I know this, as few years ago had a colleague from Brazil visited here, I live in Asia continent btw, here computer's parts price is say about 10-20% more than average price in US. He was frantically shopped computer parts and electronics gadgets like crazy. If I'm not mistaken, he told me a single SSD bought here, when sold there at their market price, he could make a profit thats comparable to his one month salary.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 06:23:18 am
content: Quote from: BravoV on May 07, 2020, 04:50:48 amDamn, you're probably right. I didn't check his country flag.QuoteI have also worked with a few guys from Brazil (engineers and scientists, all really clever and highly competent), and they sometimes told us how expensive things are, about the scarcity and how even older stuff is going for insane prices. And about the shock when seeing how much cheaper and how easy to get all this stuff is in countries like the US or UK.But they were well aware how backward the situation was in their home country, and they were quite aware that in the U.S. and Europe things were a lot better. They never assumed that it's everywhere like in Brazil.And as to technical facts, that's not really a thing of location. If internet is good enough for posting on the EEV forum then it's probably good enough to learn about the current state of technology like SSDsQuote from: Monkeh on May 06, 2020, 10:15:45 pmTrue.I do have a hunch where his aversion against SSDs might come from. Since he mentioned gamers, I remember back on the early days of consumer SSDs a lot of gamers bought stuff from a company called OCZ. Back in 2009 or so when SSD were the latest shit, they sold several solid state drives aimed at 'PC enthusiasts' and gamers. It appears many of these drives were highly unreliable, many died during the warranty period, and there were also a number of very nasty firmware bugs (and that at a time when flashing the firmware often meant that the data was lost). From what I remember many gamers got burned by this, and for some time there was a certain distrust of SSDs in general (also because there were some shit consumer drives from other manufacturers).Not that this has much relevance for the state of solid state storage in 2010. But it might well explain PKTKS' aversion against flash based storage.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 06:41:49 am
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 07, 2020, 06:23:18 amThere are also possibilities that in Brazil, not very sure though, that "used" SSDs imported from developed countries, are selling like hot cakes there, maybe through channel like imported E-waste.To PKTKS, even my country is categorized as a "developing" country, the current market for the low end bottom dollar computer, especially in ala-carte non branded desktop, 1TB spinning disk part even new, is becoming harder to find, and cheapest desktop at local re-sellers are beginning to put the cheap like 120/250GB SSD as bottom standard option.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 10:54:51 am
content: Quote from: BravoV on May 07, 2020, 06:41:49 amThis wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. A lot of "e-waste" seems to end up in poorer places it was never meant to end there, so it's entirely feasible that storage devices like SSDs which were decomissioned over here just end up being "refurbished" for sale on other countries.QuoteIndeed. Right now, where I live, if I wanted to go and buy a PC (or laptop) with spinning rust I'd have real difficulties finding one because even the cheapest boxes now come with SSDs. To get a PC with hard drive I'd have to specifically order it.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 11:05:39 am
content: Indeed. I actually bought a couple of PCs that don't have space for a full size 2.5 inch drive now. It's M.2 card only. And those are ~2 years old. They're not laptops either.We're 2-3 years off spinning rust being gone completely.

author: PKTKS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 11:09:04 am
content: Quote from: BravoV on May 07, 2020, 06:41:49 amI will try to keep short...Can not tell WHY but I have the impression that some folksare actually having this conversation with that "flag" banneror with some ether entity coming from a fucked brain thatthinks they live in some other superior place..for the record some folks here live in a medieval kingdom island...FOR THE RECORD: I AM FUCKING GERMAN DESCENDANTif I let my DUTCH DNA speaks about race and flags - will stinkRegarding BRAVO comments:- You got the point very well- The price tag (BITS per DOLLAR) is far better using HDs- Other solutions also put that setup way above that crappy comments.- second comments about MOBOs - they *VARY* by mixingsome BIOS (pretty much older ones) with some NVM embed controllers.SOME DO WORKS FINE - SOME DON'TThis is not hard to understand..Even folks behind medieval kingdoms would do that.Just a pocket book decisionPaul

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 11:49:39 am
content: Quote from: PKTKS on May 07, 2020, 11:09:04 amAnd I ask you, what board designed to boot from NVMe, especially one you can buy new today,doesn'tboot from NVMe?Evidence your statements instead of shouting.

author: PKTKS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 11:52:50 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on May 07, 2020, 11:49:39 amI am pretty sure that your flag banner issues you and yourisland partners to figure it out for yourself.Try a vast combination of controllers and figure it out yourselfPaul

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 11:52:56 am
content: PKTKS, are you living in the past? There is absolutely nothing wrong with EXT4, it's extremely widely supported, same with NVMe. It has several significant advantages over SATA drives and have been supported for many years.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 11:53:05 am
content: I think spinning disk drives will be around for a while for high capacity centralized storage, but for primary/boot drive in PCs and laptops? No way. I won't even use them as secondary storage drives anymore.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 11:55:32 am
content: Quote from: PKTKS on May 07, 2020, 11:52:50 amI have tried a pretty large number of combinations and the internet as a whole has tried many more - I've never seen an issue. If you're not going to actually be specific and helpful, what's the point of posting other than feeling smug in being 'smarter' than us?

author: PKTKS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 11:59:27 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on May 07, 2020, 11:52:56 amindeed nothing wrong - never said that stupid thingMy servers use them all EXT3 EXT4 ZFS and xfs..Different partitions and other things.My NAS is fully automated with NFS mostlyPoint is.. SERVICE IMAGE MEMORY TO SUPPORT eachof those combinations are rather tricky to buildIf you don't know what a SERVICE MEMORY IMAGE is.please this conversation lead nowhere.Paul

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 12:00:34 pm
content: ?

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 12:04:30 pm
content: Quote from: PKTKS on May 07, 2020, 11:59:27 amThere are many available recovery images which support most filesystems, you needn't build your own.It's also.. not actually that hard to build a couple 'extra' (ZFS being the only 'extra') filesystems into a kernel and include userspace tools. But hey, I've only been doing this for 15 years, what do I know..

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 12:10:50 pm
content: I don't even know if that's what he means. A straight image (dd) or just copying/tar'ing files works for pretty much any file system out there. What the heck is a service memory image? You're speaking in runes my friend.If one is concerned about ZFS kernels, most distributions maintain their own (mine does), so you don't even have to worry about applying patches or making sure you have all the tools to build (or waiting for it to build).Last thing, even if a board doesn't support NVMe boot this is among the most trivial issues to solve, by simply installing the bootloader onto a different drive, and loading kernel + mounting root off NVMe.

author: PKTKS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 12:12:09 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on May 07, 2020, 12:04:30 pmFALSE statement.You are REQUIRED to have the right combinationsof kernel versions to support features which mostlyare version dependent.You probably are speaking of those GOONIE distroswhich are "frozen" in time totally dependent of releases.This is not the real worldMy systems are all top of the versions and security patches.It is impossible to use those retarded goonies ready made stuffBut suit yourself to be locked on those distros..Left those things decades ago..Paul

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 12:16:06 pm
content: You're usually required to have a new enough version mixed with the compatible patch, which isn't too hard to deal with.

author: PKTKS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 12:19:36 pm
content: Quote from: Ampera on May 07, 2020, 12:16:06 pmIt is tricky.BUSYBOX MEMORY SERVICE IMAGES are very trickyThey need to be 100% matched with the system to service.Otherwise odd things will happenWhoever says this is easy or trivialhas no clue what is talking about.Try building a latest BUSYBOX w/latest kerneland bundled libc with FS tools in a memory image...and... You will see for yourself.Paul

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 12:26:44 pm
content: Quote from: PKTKS on May 07, 2020, 12:12:09 pmBack it up, then. What magical combination doesn't have ext2/3/4, murderfs, xfs support built in which isn't many years old?QuoteAnd now you're not only making assumptions, you're being insulting.What do I run? Gentoo, Alpine, Debian, Ubuntu, OpenWRT.. whatever suits the task, not whatever suitsyou. On Gentoo, almost all my kernels are custom built.Youdo nothave to build a custom image to support every one of your systems unless you go actively out of your way to make it that way.Quote from: PKTKS on May 07, 2020, 12:19:36 pmNo, they don't (some exceptions may apply to poorly supported things like ZFS). And if they're busybox, how are they 100% matched? Not everything uses busybox - most things don't.QuoteNo, I only run Gentoo, ran Slack for 4-5 years (what an incredible clusterfuck that was), develop for OpenWRT on the side, am maintaining my own aports tree for Alpine to keep ahead of buck-passing developers..And the average user doesn't need to do any of this.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 12:29:55 pm
content: OH, So you're talking about a restore/rescue environment. I can't say I've done that, but I still don't imagine it to be as complicated as you're making it out to be. I don't know why any rescue environment would have to be perfectly matched to anything, for myself personally I have a few environments that I use (that are pre-made), including Arch Linux for general maintenance, gParted live if I need to deal with partitions graphically, and FreeBSD netboot if I need decent NFS or ZFS support. With that combination (all of which are available on my PXE setup), I can do the vast majority of tasks, including restoring backup images, installing operating systems, mounting drives, chrooting and fixing installs, the works.So while I may never have thrown together a busybox environment, I've never seen the need to, as I have pre-made stuff to do that for me, with both Linux tools being perfectly capable of dealing with ext4 and ext3 just fine. If I had to make a customized image, I'd rather base it on Arch Linux, which is my go-to distro, which provides excellent tools for making arch environments, on which I can do things like customize kernels, boot methods, bundled tools, etc, and wrap it all up in an image I could boot using whatever.It's not that hard.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 12:34:10 pm
content: There are a lot of straw men being built and burned here now.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 12:54:18 pm
content: Boot drive at NVME will be on EXT4, still digesting on the 3 HDs.Btw, the ECC memories have arrived.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 12:57:09 pm
content: Quote from: BravoV on May 07, 2020, 12:54:18 pmmd and ext4. ZFS is a moving target, btfs is a moving target with bits falling off it.*awaits flames*

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 12:59:16 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on May 07, 2020, 12:57:09 pmAt this point I'll agree.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 01:32:00 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on May 07, 2020, 12:57:09 pmI agree, with the exception of BTRFSI'd still recommend XFS over ext4, though.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 01:33:47 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on May 07, 2020, 12:57:09 pmOk, about my situation which I didn't tell thoroughly at 1st post, sorry.I'm fully aware & understand on the multiple HDs arrangement for storage, it should be on NAS, as once finished setup & running, then tuck it into the corner and forget it. We had NAS before, infact I bought one specifically for her need.She just love to pile up on photos & videos captured from her phone, camera and vidcam, that until now already reaching few TBs. When we had NAS, she was complaining that she wants the snappier feel when doing simple editing on her few hundreds MB video files exactly like local files, hence she hates NAS.Also for past few years, she experienced bit-rots that damaged just few (less than 10 I think) of her "valued"JPGs and probably one or two video files, I forgot the details, but it happened, and pissed her so much.So, when it comes to her desktop refreshment, after we discussed the cost, we decided we skip SSD for storage and only HDs, but must be local instead of thru NAS. Also, she "demands" that she doesn't want to experience bit-rot anymore.So for the 3 HD storage, as Linux beginner, especially for the bit-rot problem, hence the possible ZFS option from the 1st place.Hope this clears things up.

author: bill_c
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 01:52:47 pm
content: Just a warning using BTRFS, it can destroy your data.I had a BTRFS RAID which sounded great and seemed to work... until a month or two after I put my VM files there. I think (read it somewhere) that the constant read/write of the VM didn't allow BTRFS enough time to do its magic. (this happened 3 times before I switched filesystems) The VM files were corrupt and could not be salvaged. I am still using the same host hardware and software with EXT4 and all is fine years later. It may be fine for storing pictures, but DO NOT use it to store your VM or any high volume read/write.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 03:13:10 pm
content: Quote from: bill_c on May 07, 2020, 01:52:47 pmYou are right, but your problem wasn't BTRFS as such, your problem was BTRFS *RAID* which is still considered 'unstable' (actually, it's now only RAID5/6 which is unstable, the other RAID levels work fine, although have still performance issues) and should really not be used.BTRFS as file system however is absoutely fine. It's been the default file system for SUSE Linux Enterprise for a few years now, which means its a fully supported file system cleared for enterprise use. We have a lot of data on BTRFS, and have been for years with no problems whatsoever. However, SUSE doesn't use the BTRFS RAID modes, for good reason (I don't think it's even enabled in SLES and openSUSE). If you need software RAID then the current solution is to run BTRFS on top of an lvm2 RAID.(I might have mentioned this before) also all my personal data rests on spinning rust in my homeserver (trusty old HP Microserver Gen8) running openSUSE 15.1 and with BTRFS as file system. Not a single problem. But then, I don't use BTRFS RAID, as the server has a proper SAS/SATA HW RAID controller (which also takes care of bit rot).I have three other Microserver Gen8 and a Dell PowerEdge T320 for other stuff I work on, all on openSUSE and BTRFS. Same here, no problems.When it comes to computing I tend to go with "if it's good enough for mission-critical business then it's good enough for me", staying away from consumer-grade hardware (or any Linux which is in any way related to something from Canonical) as far as possible, and (knock on wood) so far this has paid off very well

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 03:16:16 pm
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 07, 2020, 03:13:10 pmEven non-RAID, I have had a nasty failure with btrfs, and their fsck just doesn't work. IMO it just isn't mature enough yet. I like it, I love the features, and I love that it's actually upstream unlike ZFS, but I'm not convinced it's there yet.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 03:21:33 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on May 07, 2020, 03:16:16 pmI guess it's down to the distro. SUSE is one of the major contributor to BTRFS and they wouldn't set on it for their main cash cow (Enterprise Linux) and tie their reputation to it if the file system wasn't up to scratch. But (like Red Hat) they often put in tweaks which may not (yet) be part of the mainline kernel, so I have no idea how BTRFS works on other Linux variants. I certainly wouldn't use it with any of the rolling distros (but then, Rolling Release and important data doesn't really fit together anyways).

author: PKTKS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 03:25:05 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on May 07, 2020, 12:34:10 pmBavarians like myself will only smell royal mumies stinking arrogant wordsPaul

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 03:32:21 pm
content: Quote from: PKTKS on May 07, 2020, 03:25:05 pmWell, at least this Bavarian here is certain to have smelled some manure

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 04:20:45 pm
content: Quote from: PKTKS on May 07, 2020, 03:25:05 pmBesserwisser is the word you're looking for

author: PKTKS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 04:27:46 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on May 07, 2020, 04:20:45 pmversuchen Sie es stattdessen der Dummkopf Worte des Knochenkopf

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 04:35:10 pm
content: I was insulting myself there. I'd expect some decorum but alas there is none...

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 04:50:26 pm
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 07, 2020, 03:13:10 pmI guess this is myproblemchallenge, isn't it ?

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 08:33:46 pm
content: Quote from: BravoV on May 07, 2020, 04:50:26 pmI don't know. Lots of people like building their own computers, or just want the latest and fastest desktop processors just to push them further through overclocking. I used to do the same back then when the Pentium 60 is still a thing.Since then I'm just buying business stuff (often 2nd hand). I can plug it together, switch it on and it works. No fuss, no hassle, nothing. The only exception is graphics cards (mostly Nvidia, also because AMD cards mostly got excessively tall for some reason) but even here I try to stay with the conservative variants. Everything has ECC RAM, and if it has spinning rust then it's connected to a hardware RAID controller.The bonus is that 2nd hand enterprise gear is often dirt cheapI keep the same principle for my working OSes (openSUSE/CentOS Linux and Windows 10 LTSB), although my gaming PC has standard Windows 10 Pro and there are two Macs as well. I stick with openSUSE also because I'm naturally lazy and YAST saves me to fiddle with the command line and OBS to search for packages which aren't in the standard repos.There are downsides, though. For example, no Ryzen or EPYC for me because right now there is no HPE/Dell tower server or workstation using these processors. CPUs are pretty much all intel (I stick with dual processor capable XEONs). No superfast gaming CPUs or extremely clocked memory. So there's that.It works for me because I value stability and reliability over performance and looks. Doesn't mean it's for everyone

author: bill_c
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 11:56:39 pm
content: Wuerstchenhund, it may have been the 3 way combo of BTRFS + RAID + VM that did it in. I never got around to trying BTRFS + VM without RAID so I can't say if that is safe or not. If I had more time I would have given it a try.

author: radar_macgyver
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2020, 04:29:56 am
content: Btrfs gave me more grief today. Workstation with btrfs root fs, single SSD (no RAID, not even dup metadata). It's a small (128 GB) SSD, with scripts to watch "df" and email me if the utilization went above 90%. Everything seemed to be going great, until a "yum update" bombed out with ENOSPC on all writes. df still showed the disk was only about 45% full, but btrfs filesystem show indicated 100% used. A bit of searching pulled up gems likethisandthis. While doing a btrfs balance 'recovered' the filesystem, the failed update hosed a bunch of stuff on /, so I was forced to nuke everything and rebuild (hooray for backups). I'm now running xfs on top of lvm (Centos 8 defaults). Let's see how well that goes. Not thrilled about the direction Centos 8 has taken, but that's another story.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2020, 07:12:02 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on May 07, 2020, 12:57:09 pmDone deal, md ext4 for the 3 HDs it is, while keeping my eyes on the ZFS progress.To be honest the main points that interested me in the ZFS (still keeps learning though) are the checksum, self curing and SLOG + L2ARC feature that probably I could coupled with mirrored 2 x cheap SSDs, time will tell what next.Again, the desktop is protected by UPS (and works as gracefully shutdown when power outage) and also we "diligently" do routine full backup externally.Thanks everyone.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2020, 07:56:13 am
content: Quote from: radar_macgyver on May 08, 2020, 04:29:56 amWell, "yum" sounds suspiciously like something RH based (Fedora?).I would never use BRTFS under a RH based distro, considering that RH has never moved BTRFS to a fully supported feature (up to RHEL 7 it was available also unsupported) and has completely removed all support from RHEL 8. It's mostly political, as RH wants to push its XFS extensions (Project Stratis) for its platform, with which BTRFS does compete.With Fedora, there's the additional thing that it's pretty much a playground for Red Hat, and while it's not truly rolling release it's mostly bleeding edge and stability more often than not takes a backseat.In my view, as of this day the only way to get reliable BTRFS is with SUSE. This may be different in a couple of years, but right now I personally wouldn't trust BTRFS on any other distro than SLES/openSUSE.Quote from: bill_c on May 07, 2020, 11:56:39 pmUnder what distro?QuoteIf you find the time I can only recommend to give openSUSE Leap (*not* Tumbleweed, which is rolling release!) a try. Aside BTRFS, there are other things which make it a great distro, like YAST.

author: radar_macgyver
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2020, 11:06:56 pm
content: @BravoV you may want to test how much memory ZFS takes up for your intended data set. It is known to be a memory hog. All my ZFS instances are pure storage servers (NAS) so this doesn't matter so much, but if it's in a desktop box it may need even more RAM to keep your average web browser happy. Have you considered a NAS but with 10G networking? It's become fairly inexpensive these days, particularly with SFP+ switches/NICs instead of 10Gbase-T. I have a FreeNAS box at home (internally uses ZFS, based on a Xeon 1541-D with 10G NICs) and it's about as fast as my desktop SSD over NFS.@Wuerstchenhund this was on a Centos 7 box, and when I had first put it together btrfs was not considered deprecated. They announced that it was later on. Centos 8 (and its corresponding RHEL) no longer offer btrfs at all, and in fact default to xfs on LVM (used to be ext4 on LVM). Now I know why. Time to switch distros, I guess. I still don't trust btrfs; that even the official FAQ mentions "the usual errors" does not inspire confidence.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2020, 08:36:15 am
content: Quote from: radar_macgyver on May 09, 2020, 11:06:56 pmYes, I dropped the idea of RAIDZ-1 on desktop, just don't want the complexity on managing/tuning/trouble-shooting, if somehow it starting to cripple the main desktop "interactive activity", this ZFS should goes only to NAS/server role for this current state, cmiiw.Regarding the wired networking, yes, we've discussed it, the cost of rewiring is clearly off budget and off the plan, as she doesn't like the extra network dangling wires except power cables only, we have two stories house, her desktop working room (wifi-ed) is quite far away at 2nd level, while myroom, lab... lair, which all computing + electronics stuff reside, is at far corner at the 1st level.Its more like budget & aesthetically constraint rather than technicality.Thanks for the suggestion.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2020, 03:12:17 pm
content: Quote from: radar_macgyver on May 09, 2020, 11:06:56 pmBTRFS was deprecated in RHEL 7.4:https://access.redhat.com/solutions/197643/However, even before then BTRFS in RHEL has always been a Technology Preview, completely unsupported. BTRFS on RHEL (and clones) was never a good ideaAnd if some of the issues listed on the BTRFS website frighten you then you better shouldn't have a look at the list of problems of ZoL.Even ext4 wasn't (and still isn't) free from issues, and it also had some data loss inducing bugs.There's no perfect file system. Which is why if your data is important you need to have backups.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2020, 03:27:02 pm
content: Just an update ...Figured out locally at the used servers merchant, they have tons of used RAID controller, and offered quite cheap a DELL PERC H730 , with 1GB cache, hardware XOR engine and BBU, about $75 each and bought two of themjust to have confidence of backup as these are used.So , RAID 5 is handled by dedicated controller and still EXT4 it is.

author: bill_c
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2020, 07:41:58 pm
content: @ Wuerstchenhund:Distro was Ubuntu, I will give openSUSE a try one day.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2020, 07:51:10 pm
content: So far, my best experience for a Linux based OS was Gentoo.However, right now I'm typing from an Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.You can draw whatever conclusion you may want out of this situation.

author: mansaxel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2020, 10:03:52 pm
content: I've seen most of my ideas already mentioned, already, so I'll just chime in one "dreamer" vote for raidz2 on FreeBSD, on a separate storage machine. And cabled network. Wifi is a joke, unless you can pour silly money into it. Especially so if you're trying RPC (like file system access, roughly) over it, because delay is very stochastic. My wifi at home is silly money level, Würstchenhund style (previous generation enterprise stuff, an AP in every room, central controller VM managing them, all connected with Gigabit Ethernet, etc.), and it's barely OK.I'll give our friend from Brazil right on one thing. Systemd is a pile of festering shite. Not that it isn't a good idea, because parts of it is, but the combination of bad NIH attitude, the childish desire to put your name on a complete set of badly "designed" utilities and interfaces that seek to "replace" things that have been carefully built over decades, utterly incompetent handling of DNS and DHCP, security ignorance (user name starting with digit 0 is interpreted as UID 0, "works as designed") and the crown of the dung heap, binary logs so you'll never understand why it broke, makes me install one of the BSDen. And Devuan when I can't avoid penguins.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2020, 09:39:45 am
content: Meanwhile most linux related threads change into systemd bashing. I don't like systemd either, but there's no need to use any possible opportunity for systemd bashing. It's boring and tiring!

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2020, 03:21:13 pm
content: Hmm, maybe let's talk PulseAudio or GNOME for a change?

author: PKTKS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2020, 12:17:42 pm
content: Quote from: mansaxel on June 07, 2020, 10:03:52 pmsystemd is a monumental pile of bad EGO trip from those goonies behind itAll security measures and good practices were just "dumped"with those "ready made" slogans like... "faster", "modern","it is here to stay", "industry blah", etc..Try to place a fully SAFE SOCKS firewall into a fully operational NASwith all file system gizmos of today top security (including encryptprotocols) and put that into a proper "SANELY CRAFTED SERVICE IMAGE"Nothing fits.systemd was designed by retarded imbeciles with no ideaabout the amount of effort placed into SECURITY and best practicesstandards in *NIX.The binary log obviously is meant to introduce their ownsystemd.registry and systemd.license_manager like shit..running like nobody really having a clue what they do...Paul

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2020, 05:25:34 pm
content: SystemD is made to sell Redhat service contracts, an eco system under their exclusive control as all encompassing as they can get away with.No getting rid of it after Debian folded really, there was a small window where Debian could have gone for runit but it's gone now. You can coast on old SysV scripts slowly getting out of sync with the evolving programs for a while, but eventually you'll have the choice to just start writing your own init scripts for everything or accept the D ... SysV is a dead end. Unfortunately it's the road most the non D distributions follow because it's also the road of least resistance, except Void.As for file systems, XFS seems to be becoming the central choice for Linux servers. When I make a little time I'm going to try to setup a server with LVM+XFS, using LVM snapshots forincremental backup.

author: PKTKS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2020, 03:59:58 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on June 09, 2020, 05:25:34 pmVery true indeed.More frequently these Mega Corporations are taking(or assumption) that everybody will just take it or leave it.Quote from: Marco on June 09, 2020, 05:25:34 pmThat mostly fallback into 2 categories:- those that never ever had already used or dealt with *NIX (true *NIX)they are/were mostly deep buried into that MS fantasy world ofthe 90s 2000s ... and never ever touched a system boot wide init script- those that previously were written their own boot scripts to handle SCOand early BSD or *NIX scripts mostly system-V style - These folks prettymuch also dealt with those crappy batch DOS and some even wrote CP/Mboot images.The later have absolute no problems handling system-V scripts as theyjust kept the flow of those decades adapting whenever neededAs a matter of fact each and every custom built boot image willrequire those scripts and several others to service the systemsDebian and others were trapped on the systemd pitfallNow they have a scalable hairy problem of making custom imagesas a whole new generation of users are totally clueless about system initQuote from: Marco on June 09, 2020, 05:25:34 pmTime consuming ... and in the event you will also setup your ownboot image with crafted file system to fit a RAM disk..There is no other way to go besides- BUSYBOX + system-V initPaul