Personal blog of a Linux and free software developer writing on ZFS, Fedora, Stallman, copyright and politics.
HN links it for ZFS versus Btrfs comparisons and the Stallman dinner post; commenters debate copyright and filesystem usability.
So has anyone here used zfs and btrfs and would like to comment on the differences? I've been on a heavy zfs kick lately, but the performance loss is hard to stomach and the only research I found points to btrfs being faster (though of course they both take a hit).
Basically the reasons I'm drawn to zfs are:
- checksumming & self-healing
- ergonomics & flexibility of managing pools with zfs
- copy on write for cheap local copy/experimentation (i.e. just clone your DB folder and you have a new DB)
- zfs send/recv for very efficient incremental backups
From what I can find it seems like btrfs does all that, and faster[0]. In addition to being faster, it also is in-kernel[1], and more flexible for the user in various ways, for example allowing resizing[2]. Looking around btrfs may not be blessed as stable but there are a lot of big orgs using it.
All that said, there are articles like this one[3] which are somewhat dated but paint ZFS really positively from a maintenance point of view. Very hard to pick between these two.
I'd really like to use ZFS -- the community seems very welcoming and amazing but I'm a little worried about picking the wrong tool for the job.
[EDIT] - there's also this old comparison from phoronix[1] which is confusing. I'm still learning towards ZFS but sure would like to hear some strong opinions if anyone has em.
[0]: https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:822493/FULLTEXT01.pdf
[1]:…
It definitely did. btrfs might have been ready years ago otherwise, but instead... it languishes like a sad joke in comparison to ZFS.
The biggest problem btrfs has, really, is the user interface. Nothing is as easy to use as the zfs command!
This is still a pretty good summary of the differences: https://rudd-o.com/linux-and-free-software/ways-in-which-zfs-is-better-than-btrfs
The only part that's outdated now is that btrfs finally has raid5/6 support... kind of. It's still marked experimental and shouldn't be trusted for production data.
Mind, btrfs does have one advantage: online shrink support providing much better resizing capabilities for its pools. This has always been on the backburner of ZFS; Sun once had a very slow implementation back around 2005-2006, but the Oracle acquisition pretty much killed any planned work on that front and I think most users of ZFS likewise don't consider it a high priority either. Even for the case of btrfs... it only works great when it's in the mood to. It's a bit easy to get into situations where it will absolutely refuse to remove devices despite there being plenty of space for it.
Do any of you know why btrfs is being pushed rather than [the more mature and super flexible] zfs?
There is lots of debate if you search google for comparisons, though they usually seem to end up favoring zfs, which is why I'm a little perplexed here.
e.g.
http://rudd-o.com/linux-and-free-software/ways-in-which-zfs-is-better-than-btrfs
Notably, I also ran into a show-stopping kernel bug [0] with btrfs within a day or two of the first production rollout of ShipBuilder [1] (it's an open-source self-hosted PaaS Heroku clone). Since switching to zfs there have been zero file-system related issues with any ShipBuilder production or staging environment so far as I am aware.
[0] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1214085
[1] http://shipbuilder.io
Bitcoin is inherently libertarian: http://rudd-o.com/archives/bitcoin-without-the-politics
If all the libertarians who are into bitcoin suddenly cut down the rhetoric, you think that this will "make bitcoin legitimate technology"? What does that even mean? You mean that governments are going to suddenly be more friendly to bitcoin users? That seems like an incredibly naive belief, sorry.
In general, it is disappointing that people still hold to backwards and primitive beliefs such as democracy and state worship. Statism is institutionalized violence and injustice writ large. I totally understand how your perspective on this can be different, but please understand that what you are calling garbage I see as a call for justice.
Note that Stallman himself is quite comfortable with his notions about mandatory sharing being enforced through state violence:
"Richard is against abolishing copyrights because, to his view, without copyright, enforcing copyleft would be impossible."
http://rudd-o.com/monopolies-of-the-mind/thoughts-after-my-dinner-with-richard-stallman
My understanding is that btrfs is still in catchup mode for the foreseeable future, but might eventually cover the distance.
Has btrfs jumped ahead of zfs in ways I haven't heard about?
Edit - this is my first search result:
http://rudd-o.com/linux-and-free-software/ways-in-which-zfs-is-better-than-btrfs