Btrfs hands on: An extremely cool file system

[WeeboTech]

Interesting article on BTRFS.

http://www.zdnet.com/btrfs-hands-on-an-extremely-cool-file-system-7000023734/

 

Love the concept that I can defragment or compress specific files (logfiles).

[tallnerd1985]

I wonder with BTRFS if a person can dynamically add a HDD and issue similar commands to add the disk to the RAID without destroying it and recreating it

 

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[vl1969]

I wonder with BTRFS if a person can dynamically add a HDD and issue similar commands to add the disk to the RAID without destroying it and recreating it

 

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if you mean BTRFS RAID than yes.

 

BTRFS have built in RAID functionality a direct replacement for Linux MD RAID and LVM

you can create a BTRFS Volume spanning multiple devices in Raid 1/10/5/6 configuration. you can even have no RAID multi device spanned volume aka LVM style.

 

best part , you can add device on the fly without stopping the system (providing you have hot-plug support on a hardware)

 

I had setup my test server(work in progress hence the test  part)

using OpenSusy 13.1 using  BTRFS /root  on 1TB HDD  as system drive

after all install and update I added second 1TB HDD and expand the volume to it

rebalanced/convert to RAID 1 setup (not 100% though as I am not sure how to setup grub to boot from either HDD, but it should be possible or so I have heard)

it did all that on a running system. I did not have to reboot or even log-off.

I was using the system the whole time doing other things like web surfing

and setting up my second NIC.

 

[tallnerd1985]

I wonder with BTRFS if a person can dynamically add a HDD and issue similar commands to add the disk to the RAID without destroying it and recreating it

 

Sent from my LG-VS980 using Tapatalk

 

if you mean BTRFS RAID than yes.

 

BTRFS have built in RAID functionality a direct replacement for Linux MD RAID and LVM

you can create a BTRFS Volume spanning multiple devices in Raid 1/10/5/6 configuration. you can even have no RAID multi device spanned volume aka LVM style.

 

best part , you can add device on the fly without stopping the system (providing you have hot-plug support on a hardware)

 

I had setup my test server(work in progress hence the test  part)

using OpenSusy 13.1 using  BTRFS /root  on 1TB HDD  as system drive

after all install and update I added second 1TB HDD and expand the volume to it

rebalanced/convert to RAID 1 setup (not 100% though as I am not sure how to setup grub to boot from either HDD, but it should be possible or so I have heard)

it did all that on a running system. I did not have to reboot or even log-off.

I was using the system the whole time doing other things like web surfing

and setting up my second NIC.

 

To make sure I am understanding this correctly. If I setup a Volume over 5-6 disks using a JBOD/LVM type setup then when their Raid5 becomes stable, I could theoretically rebalance/convert to Raid5?

 

And to clarify/expand on my last question. If I already have a Raid5 volume with 5 disks and let's say I want to add another 1, I could do that unlike ZFS or conventional Raid5?

 

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[vl1969]

It is not LVM type setup but yes.

The beauty of btrfs is that it works like raid and lvm but natively.  think of it like this,

Lvm gives you ability to work with multiple devices as one, well this functionality is bult right into btrfs natively,  you can use it over single and multiple devices with practically no extra effort.

Now raid was designed to give you uptime and redundancy and data security. Well now you have it in btrfs natively.

 

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[garycase]

I wonder what issues Tom found that caused him to (apparently) abandon the BTRFS cache idea.  As you may recall, this was advertised as a new feature that would be in v5 => but clearly was not; and I've seen no subsequent indication that it's "coming" anytime soon.

 

But from this discussion, it sure seems like it would be a really neat feature !!

(i.e. fault-tolerance for the cache)

 

[WeeboTech]

I bet the time table got shifted to 64bit and XEN.

[apgood]

I think in one of the announcement threads for 6.0 he did mention that he still intends to use btrfs for cache drive but that it was going to be in one of the later beta releases.

 

Edit:  Actually found the post I was thinking of in beta2 announcement http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=31525.msg286613.msg#286613.

 

Tom was actually talking about "cache pools" and that it was the next thing to concentrate on after xen. O think I inferred it was going to use btrfs from what Tom said during the 5.0 rc days.  Mind you there is discussion after the linked post about btrfs that included a couple of brief comments from Tom but nothing specifically linking cache pools and btrfs, but I think this is his intention given what he has said in the past.  Naturally to would need to confirm this himself to make it fact.

 

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