this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024
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Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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I want to learn more about file systems from the practical point of view so I know what to expect, how to approach them and what experience positive or negative you had / have.

I found this wikipedia's comparison but I want your hands-on views.

For now my mental list is

  • NTFS - for some reason TVs on USB love these and also Windows + Linux can read and write this
  • Ext4 - solid fs with journaling but Linux specific
  • Btrfs - some modern fs with snapshot capability, Linux specific
  • xfs - servers really like these as they are performant, Linux specific
  • FAT32 - limited but recognizable everywhere
  • exFAT - like FAT32 but less recognizable and less limited
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[–] ScottE@lemm.ee 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

ZFS for nearly everything plus ZFSBootMenu EFI on root data pools. Get a bad upgrade? No problem, boot a previous snapshot (auto created with a pacman hook), which I had to do recently when 6.6.39 LTS kernel had a bug. Snapshots are also great when doing things such as upgrading postgres, hass, Plex, etc.

[–] Toribor@corndog.social 4 points 3 months ago

I've been using ZFS now for a few years for all my data drives/pools but I haven't gotten brave enough to boot from it yet. Snapshotting a system drive would be really handy.

[–] nickiam2@aussie.zone 6 points 3 months ago

I use ext4 for all boot drives and root filesystems. Anything really important goes on a ZFS array. And for my Linux isos, I use a drive with ext4 + snapraid. The parity drive has xfs because ext4 has a 16tb file size limit.

Got rid of anything NTFS as it was unreliable and slow on Linux.

[–] KindaABigDyl@programming.dev 5 points 3 months ago

Ext4 bc of its speed for games and my main files. Btrfs on the root for compression

[–] ghjones@beehaw.org 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

A combination of XFS and ZFS. I work in high performance computing (academic). While I love the reliability of ZFS for data archival and peace of mind that results provably haven’t suffered bitrot, sometimes I just need a 10 TB temp file(s) with fast mostly-sequential R/W. Appropriate selection of file systems lets me have both.

[–] ghjones@beehaw.org 4 points 3 months ago

As an aside, I’ve been watching bcachefs with some interest, as it seems to be getting faster with every kernel release, building on the data integrity guarantees of ZFS while pushing performance boundaries and being GPL compatible (i.e. in tree). Kent Overstreet et al. have done a fantastic job with this FS.

[–] doubletwist@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

XFS on my server VMs and my laptops and desktops.

ZFS on my file server. I'd use it on my laptops and desktops too (and have done when I was using Xubuntu) but I've switched toFedora which doesn't come with a way to easily install with ZFS and I don't feel like jumping through hoops to get it done. And I can't stand btrfs. I don't know what it is about it, but I just don't like it.

[–] Verat@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (6 children)

I use bcachefs for my games, I like that it lets me have multiple disks with redundant data copies, plus ssd caching of frequently accessed files, this fs is linux specific for now as far as I know, and is still experimental. I use ext4 for everything else, and FAT32 for flash drives.

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[–] VinesNFluff@pawb.social 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Btrfs main boot drive

Xfs main storage drive

exFAT external "archive" drive (easy to connect to Windows machines if ever I need my backup in someone else's windows machine in an emergency and such)

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[–] n2burns@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 months ago

It's all Ext4, but I run SnapRAID on top of that on my data drives. I'm sure lots of people would tell me I should use ZFS/BTRFS instead, but I'm used to SnapRAID, and I like the idea if something goes wrong, I won't lose all my data.

[–] seaQueue@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Btrfs, ZFS and ext4. My servers use ZFS, my client machines mostly use btrfs and I have a sprinkling of ext4 partitions for specific workloads. I'm all in on CoW filesystems for snapshots, send receive, transparent compression and reflinks. I like btrfs on client machines and SBCs because it's easily available (baked into the kernel) and doesn't require maintaining dkms or holding kernel versions until ZFS supports them and because snapshot handling and other filesystem admin tasks are simple and straightforward. I run ZFS wherever data integrity is important, eg: storage servers and backup targets, but largely prefer working with btrfs.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Defaults

So Btrfs, ZFS and ext4 (ext4 is virtual only)

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[–] CatLikeLemming@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Btrfs because it sounded cool when I first read about it and worked fine so far :3

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[–] Mwa@thelemmy.club 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

NTFS Usally for windows,ext4 for linux,btrfs to install linux on,vfat/fat32 for cross platform compatibility

[–] savvywolf@pawb.social 3 points 3 months ago

I've been basically using btrfs on a lot of my disks because of the features it has.

Before I switched to a borg based system, my backups partition used btrfs for compression.

My main OS disk is btrfs so I can use timeshift snapshots, which are really worth checking out if you tinker with your system a lot.

I have two more btrfs partitions software raid0'd together for my steam library, nix store and other big but loosable things.

And my main home folder uses btrfs because I think the checksumming thing it does is more reliable for error detection, and cow is more fault tollerant on power failure?

... And I now fell like I'm one of those people with an over engineered storage solution. I just never get rid of old ssds or hard disks!

[–] drwho@beehaw.org 3 points 3 months ago

Servers - btrfs. Fewer layers of abstraction, easier to manipulate.

Laptops - ext4. I don't do anything weird with the onboard storage, plus it supports fscrypt.

Flash drives - exFAT. I usually need to access them on multiple platforms and exFAT is about as cross-platform as VFAT (but supports bigger files).

[–] shotgun_crab@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

Btrfs for the compression and snapshots

[–] CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 months ago

Pretty much all ext4 except for a few Windows installs on NTFS.

[–] lnxtx@feddit.nl 3 points 3 months ago

Depends. Slower desktop machines XFS.
Standard desktop XFS, if it has a smaller SSD, Btrfs.
Home server ext4/XFS + ZFS. Generic servers at work ext4/XFS, backup/storage servers ZFS.
Database server, experiment with ZFS with compression enabled - ratio 2:1, but encountered problems (probably a bad HBA model), standard ext4/XFS.
Hosts with virtualization, small server - XFS, big server - ZFS (technically a ZVOL).

[–] kbal@fedia.io 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

ext4, but the btrfs activity visible in the kernel changelog has slowed down recently after a long period of many bug fixes, so maybe I'll give it a try next time.

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[–] PoopMonster@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Whatever my installation CD had as default 😂. I'm guessing ext4?

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