Is Btrfs the best file system?

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In simple terms, the filesystem is a database containing physical locations of files and data for easy retrieval at the time when it is needed. With the help of the Filesystem, the operating system controls how the data is stored and retrieved. File System usually contains files separated into groups known as directories which can hold files and furthermore directories in them. Also helps the system to store the files in the most efficient way possible.

Example: 

• Ext4 and Btrfs Filesystems are pretty much well known for their performance in Linux environments.
• NTFS and FAT are known in Windows environments.

A filesystem that is well known for its performance and reliability with added metadata and checksums. It is an extent-based filesystem that is used to describe long, physically contiguous files in a single inode pointer entry hence reducing the number of pointers. Fragmentation is also less in this filesystem. It uses delayed allocation to allow the filesystem to collect data that is to be written to the disk before allocating space for it. All these features make it very efficient and reliable than the older versions of Ext filesystems.

2. Btrfs Filesystem:

Btrfs is a copy-on-write (COW) filesystem that focuses mainly on ease in repair and administration. Btrfs eliminates the risk of corruption of data and inaccuracy in data. It is extent based filesystem with huge file size support up to 2 powered 64 (2^64) bytes. It has dynamic inode allocation because of which we can create as many files as we want until we have free space. Also, its name comes from B-trees, which the filesystem uses to store internal file structures for efficient processing of files.

Note: 

1. After Btrfs filesystem gets fully developed or maybe in a few years when all its features are stable, Ext4 might get replaced by it.
2. Creating a file or directory with the name ‘.’ and ‘..’ in both the Ext4 or Btrfs filesystem is not possible.

 We will compare the file systems based on the given features:

• Type: It could be Journaling or Copy-on-Write.
• Deduplication: A method with which a file system can remove duplicate copies of some data so as to be storage efficient.
• File-System Compression: The method with which the data automatically gets compressed when is written in the file system.
• Checksum: Ensures Data Integrity and avoid corruption of user’s data.
• Snapshot: It is a sub-volume that shares all data along with the information related to the specific data(metadata) with another sub-volume.
• Storage Efficiency: With the help of Block Suballocation and tail-packing methods a large file is stored in blocks and in the tail space in the last block it stores some part of another file block. It also helps in increasing the system’s performance.
• Maximum Number of Files: Number of Files we can store in respective filesystems.
• Maximum File Size and Partition size: Maximum Size of File and Partition we can create in the respective filesystems,

Comparison Table

Advantages of Ext4 over Btrfs:

•     Ext4 is a reliable and stable filesystem that keeps our data safe in most unwanted events like power loss.
•     It has been used for a long time hence testing and bug fixes have improved it a lot.
•     Ext4 transfers file faster than Btrfs hence it is a good choice for users.

Advantages of Btrfs over Ext4:

•  Btrfs uses a checksum to ensure that the data doesn’t corrupt, on the other hand, Ext4 doesn’t ensure data integrity.
•  Btrfs come with compression algorithms present in the filesystem, allowing data to be compressed at the filesystem level right when written to the system.No such built-in compression support is in Ext4.
•  Btrfs removes duplicate data from disk directly while Ext4 cannot do that,
•  Btrfs support CoW so users can create writable and read-only snapshots of files. Ext4 lacks this feature.
•  Btrfs Can handle more data than Ext4.

Conclusion:

 Ext4 is stable which ensures the safety of data and also faster. Hence it being in use for so long with bugs-fixes makes it a better choice in the present as it is much more reliable.

Which is the winner in a ZFS vs BTRFS scenario? Which one brings the best performance in an EXT4 vs XFS standoff?

Truth is, each ZFS, BTRFS, XFS, or EXT4 file system – to only name the most popular ones – has pros and cons. 

Whether for enterprise data centers or personal purposes, choosing the best file system will depend on the amount of data and setup requirements.

To help your decision-making, in this article we will check on  ZFS, BTRFS, XFS, and EXT4 differences and investigate what’s the best each can do in implementations. 

What is a File System and Why it Matters

The term file system refers to the methods and structures that your operating system (OS) applies to manage how your data is stored, organized, and retrieved on a storage disk. 

A file system comprises internal operations such as file naming, metadata, directories, folders, access rules, and privileges.

Storage devices are intended to merely hold lots of bits; they have no notion of files, like ZFS, BTRFS, XFS, and EXT4. Meaning that otherwise, data on a storage medium would be nothing but one large body of information. 

A file system works similarly to the Table of Contents in a book: it allows your files to be broken up into chunks and stored across many blocks. 

Within this metaphor, a file system greatly simplifies data management and access. Simply put, if you alter a chapter or move it somewhere else, you must update the Table of Contents, or the pages won’t match.

BTRFS, ZFS, XFS, and EXT4 File Systems – Complete Comparison

Windows users don’t have much of a choice regarding a file system. Its OS comes with only one by default (mostly it’s NTFS, FAT 32, or HFS). 

On the other hand, for Linux/Unix-based devices, it might be a bit of a challenge choosing one among many options.

We’ll go over each file system in more detail ahead. But for the purpose of a handy round-up, consider our top picks below:

BEST FOR ENTERPRISES:

BTRFS is great for large companies that need a handy file system that is easy to manage; good for technologies and projects where high fault tolerance is not required. 

BEST FOR MAINFRAMES:

For the most part, ZFS is intended to work with Sun (now Oracle) products, which are mainframes, clustered server environments, supercomputers, etc. Consequently, some of the benefits offered by ZFS won’t work for small businesses and private users.

BEST FOR PERSONAL PROJECTS:

Despite some capacity limitations, EXT4 makes it a very reliable and robust system to work with. Given that, EXT4 is the best fit for SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) needs and projects requiring stable performance.

BEST FOR LARGE VOLUME OF DATA:

XFS can be exceptionally helpful where large files are involved: huge data storages, large-scale scientific or bloody enterprise projects, etc.

BTRFS

B-tree file system, or BTRFS, is a file system based on the copy-on-write (COW) mechanism. 

This implies that, as you modify a file, the file system won’t overwrite the existing data on the drive with newer information. 

Instead, the newer data is written elsewhere. Once the write operation is over, the file system simply points to the newer data blocks (with the old information getting recycled over time). 

COW also prevents issues like partial writes, which can take place due to power failure or kernel panic, and potentially corrupt your entire file system. With COW in place, a write has either happened or not happened, there’s no in-between.

BTRFS was originally designed to address the lack of pooling, checksums, snapshots, and integral multi-device spanning in Linux file systems. 

The BTRFS file system focus on fault tolerance and repair advanced features implementation, such as: 

• subvolumes;
• self-healing;
• online volume growth and shrinking;
• file compression;
• defragmentation;
• deduplication (it ensures that only one copy of duplicated data will be written into the disk). 

Finally, BTRFS is easier to administer and manage on small systems compared to other options.

On the other hand, the system is still considered to be quite unstable and is known for issues associated with RAID implementation. 

When comparing BTRFS vs ZFS, the first offers much less redundancy compared to the latter.

ZFS

ZFS (short for Zettabyte File System) is fundamentally different in this arena for it goes beyond basic file system functionality, being able to serve as both LVM and RAID in one package. 

Combining the file system and volume manager roles, ZFS allows you to add additional storage devices to the current system and immediately acquire new space on all existing file systems in that pool.

Here’s a list of the top ZFS advantages: 

• Great scalability and support for nearly unlimited (up to 1 billion terabytes) data and metadata storage capacity; 
• Extensive protection from data corruption as compared to other file systems — which, however, is less important for most home NAS storages for the risks ZFS safeguards against are very small;
• Efficient data compression, snapshots, and copy-on-write clones;
• Continuous integrity checking and automatic repair, significantly greater redundancy when you compare ZFS vs BTRFS.

Along with this, ZFS has its drawbacks:

• Plenty of its processes rely upon RAM, which is why ZFS takes up a lot of it; 
• ZFS requires a really powerful environment (computer or server resources, that is) to run at sufficient speed;
• ZFS is not the best option for working with microservice architectures and weak hardware.

XFS

Extents File System, or XFS, is a 64-bit, high-performance journaling file system that comes as default for the RHEL family.

There are plenty of benefits for choosing XFS as a file system: 

• XFS works extremely well with large files;
• XFS is known for its robustness and speed;
• XFS is particularly proficient at parallel input/output (I/O) operations due to its design, which is based on allocation groups; 
• XFS provides excellent scalability of I/O threads, file system bandwidth, and size of files and of the file system itself when spanning multiple physical storage devices;
• XFS provides data consistency by using metadata logging and maintaining write barriers;
• XFS enables allocating space across extents with data structures stored in B-trees also improves overall file system performance, especially when dealing with large files;
• Delayed allocation with XFS helps prevent file system fragmentation, while online defragmentation is also supported;
• A unique feature of XFS is that I/O bandwidth is pre-allocated at a predetermined rate, which is suitable for many real-time applications.
• When comparing XFS vs EXT4, XFS also offers unlimited inode allocation, advanced allocation hinting (in case you need it), and, in recent versions, reflink support.

Among the drawbacks of the XFS file system is a serious lack of security against silent disk failures. 

XFS is also deficient against ‘bit rot’, which causes a nearly complete inability to recover files in case of data loss. 

Another disadvantage is a high sensitivity to large numbers of small files.

EXT4

The acronym “EXT” refers to Linux’s original extended file system created as early as 1992. 

Being the first to use a virtual file system (VFS) switch, it allowed Linux to support multiple file systems at the same time on the same system. 

Since then, Linux has released three updates: ext2, ext3, and EXT4, which come by default on the Linux system today.

The EXT4 main benefits are: 

• Able to handle larger files and volumes than its evolutionary predecessors; 
• EXT4 also extends flash memory lifespan through delayed allocation, which, in turn, improves performance and reduces fragmentation by effectively allocating bigger amounts of data at a time;
• Useful features that greatly increase reliability and fault-tolerance of the system like journaling (a system of logging changes to reduce file corruption);
• Persistent pre-allocation, journal, and metadata checksumming; 
• Faster file-system checking; 
• Unlimited number of subdirectories.

However, when we review EXT4 vs BTRFS, here’s the downside: BTRFS has disk and volume management built-in, while EXT4 is a “pure filesystem”. 

If you have multiple disks — and therefore parity or redundancy from which corrupted data can theoretically be recovered — EXT4 has no way of knowing that, even less using it to your advantage. 

Besides, EXT4 provides a limited capacity to operate modern loads of data, which is why it’s considered somewhat outdated these days.

File System Recovery

It’s true that some file system recovery applications may be good at fixing minor logical errors or volume corruption issues. 

However, diagnosing the problem itself can be very tricky. Not to mention the following recovery process, which requires lots of expertise and technical mastery to be involved.

To prevent the situation from getting worse (think of permanently losing your crucial files), we recommend you contact a credible data recovery team. 

Whether it’s a physical problem that you’ve encountered — like damage to your storage device — or a logical issue caused by your file system failures, at SalvageData we have all the necessary equipment and certified experience to eliminate it in the fastest and safest manner possible. 

Contact us 24/7 for a free examination of your case, and let the professionals do the rest.