Do you use ext4 or any other file system? Which one - and why?

dhubs

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Good morning dear friends, :)

If it comes the process of choosing a file - system I am a bit insecure. As a Linux user for years now I allways stick to the ext4 system.

Which file system do you use, and why?

As said above: I have always used the ext4 system whenever I've used Linux. Lately, I have thought - that this is probably due to the lack of deeper understanding of the other options - and then I considered the use of other file systems: BTRFS seems like the stand out choice, at least to me.


Well I am lucky to be here in this great place and absolutely look forward to hear from you: What file systems do you guys use, and what drove you to make the change?
 


Good morning dear friends, :)

If it comes the process of choosing a file - system I am a bit insecure. As a Linux user for years now I allways stick to the ext4 system.

Which file system do you use, and why?

As said above: I have always used the ext4 system whenever I've used Linux. Lately, I have thought - that this is probably due to the lack of deeper understanding of the other options - and then I considered the use of other file systems: BTRFS seems like the stand out choice, at least to me.


Well I am lucky to be here in this great place and absolutely look forward to hear from you: What file systems do you guys use, and what drove you to make the change?
I always use EXT4 filesystem in my opinion is the best option for to install a Linux Distribution.
 
If preparing a drive for install..... ext4 for the main partition, and FAT32, and Manage Flags to set "esp" and "boot" flags on this partition.

If I am saving movies/tv shows/Timehsift snapshots/rescuezilla backup etc to an external drive....ext4

On a separate partition I save some ntfs files...in order to be able to do that in linux i use fuse
 
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Ext4, otherwise exFAT for flash media.

Both for the same reason. They do the job asked of them and just work for me.
 
For desktop workstations, usually ext4. For servers, usually xfs.
 
For my desktop/laptop I use btrfs because of the builtin snapshot functionality of the filesystem and on servers I use xfs most of the time.
 
For my desktop/laptop I use btrfs because of the builtin snapshot functionality of the filesystem and on servers I use xfs most of the time.
can you elaborate a bit on your choices?
 
can you elaborate a bit on your choices?
I have my system setup to to make hourly snapshots so that if I want to go back to a point in time I can just restore to a specific snapshot if for if I get in a sitatuation where I would want to go back to a previous state of my system. I use btrfs-assistent for that.
I could use Timeshift but btrfs-assistant doesn't care about your partition layout as Timeshiftt does, last time I tried Timeshift that was. With Timeshift you can use another fileystem as well and then it uses rsync to create snapshots , that seems to work just fine but I personally think it's better to use something native when it's available when it comes to your filesystem, that way less chance of data corruption if something where to go wrong.
 
I have my system setup to to make hourly snapshots so that if I want to go back to a point in time I can just restore to a specific snapshot if for if I get in a sitatuation where I would want to go back to a previous state of my system. I use btrfs-assistent for that.
I could use Timeshift but btrfs-assistant doesn't care about your partition layout as Timeshiftt does, last time I tried Timeshift that was. With Timeshift you can use another fileystem as well and then it uses rsync to create snapshots , that seems to work just fine but I personally think it's better to use something native when it's available when it comes to your filesystem, that way less chance of data corruption if something where to go wrong.
How exactly do these BTRFS snapshot work? let's say I have a 2TB SSD and want to Snapshot to be stored on a 8TB HDD. Would the new Snapshot replace the previous made snapshots? Are those full backups, differential or incremental? Does it work over the network?
 
How exactly do these BTRFS snapshot work? let's say I have a 2TB SSD and want to Snapshot to be stored on a 8TB HDD. Does it work over the network?
With btrfs-assistent the snapshots are kept on the same filesystem under @/.snapshots(or under @subolume/.snapshots if you have multiple sub-volumes configured for creating snapshot). You could probably sync it to another disk which I have never tried it.

It seems you can you create snapshots to another disk and remote location, but then it's better to use one of the other tools that is designed for it and not btrfs-assistent.

But if you are actually needing a setup where you backup over a network it's better to use a real backup solution that is designed for that which has a server/client setup.

Would the new Snapshot replace the previous made snapshots?
No because they don't get the same name.

Are those full backups, differential or incremental?

So in short yes you can make snapshots to a remote location or another drive with btrfs snapshots but then you will have to use Snapper directly and a third party tool.
 
With btrfs-assistent the snapshots are kept on the same filesystem under @/.snapshots(or under @subolume/.snapshots if you have multiple sub-volumes configured for creating snapshot). You could probably sync it to another disk which I have never tried it.

It seems you can you create snapshots to another disk and remote location, but then it's better to use one of the other tools that is designed for it and not btrfs-assistent.

But if you are actually needing a setup where you backup over a network it's better to use a real backup solution that is designed for that which has a server/client setup.


No because they don't get the same name.



So in short yes you can make snapshots to a remote location or another drive with btrfs snapshots but then you will have to use Snapper directly and a third party tool.
Thanks, I guess I'll stay with https://github.com/laurent22/rsync-time-backup

Sorry, if it's offtopic
 
I am using BTRFS in my workstations, but in the servers I use ext4.

But why, you may think, BUT WHY GABRIEL?

Basically because in the workstations I use fedora, where the default is btrfs, and in the servers Ubuntu Server, where the default is ext4.

I am not sure I am making the most of either of them, but I will. Some day. When I manage to keep my head above the water re. tinkering backlog
 
I use fedora, where the default is btrfs,
Good point, also one of the reasons why I use btrfs on my desktop/laptop it because I normally just use the default of the distribution I am using which is Fedora for my desktop/laptop. When I am using RHEL or CentOS on a server then I just use xfs.
 
I am quite happy with ext4,
 
I used EXT2 for a long time because I was using grub4dos bootloader and it didn't recognize EXT4 even enough to pretend it was EXT2. Since switching to grub2, I've been using EXT4. For removable media, I use a dual boot setup that works on either a BIOS system or an EFI system, so I have a main partition as EXT4 and a very small EFI partition as VFAT.
 

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