Btrfs With Linux 6.13 Delivers Performance Improvements & Other Features

[pWe00Iri3e7Z9lHOX2Qx]

TrueNAS Scale (which unlike TrueNAS core runs on debian Linux using OpenZFS) has enterprise clients running peta (and higher) bytes of data on it and there aren't any more issues then with TrueNAS core.

In fact the ixSystem employeers (they are the ones who created TrueNAS and also have contracts with these big enterprises, thats how they get paid) said that overall they haven't encountered any glaring issues unique to Linux and in fact they generally get less issues with TrueNAS Scale (largely due to Linux's better hardware compatibility, TrueNAS core is still rock solid stable but you have to be careful about the hardware you buy)

What does any of that have to do with what I wrote though? I have a TrueNAS Scale box here, and they use LTS kernels, which is exactly what I'm suggesting. Trusting your data to a bleeding edge kernel without official ZFS support is a terrible idea. For home servers where you want ZFS, you have several reasonable choices.

• TrueNAS Scale
• Proxmox
• Ubuntu Server LTS

There are a bunch of others depending on what you are comfortable with (NixOS, MicroOS + LTS kernel, uCore, etc.)

[mdedetrich]

OP is running CachyOS on their home server, hence my comment. I don't mind running cherry picked compat change ZFS builds on my desktop where there's no important data that doesn't also exist on a server, the latter of which would never run unsupported kernel versions.

TrueNAS Scale (which unlike TrueNAS core runs on debian Linux using OpenZFS) has enterprise clients running peta (and higher) bytes of data on it and there aren't any more issues then with TrueNAS core.

In fact the ixSystem employeers (they are the ones who created TrueNAS and also have contracts with these big enterprises, thats how they get paid) said that overall they haven't encountered any glaring issues unique to Linux and in fact they generally get less issues with TrueNAS Scale (largely due to Linux's better hardware compatibility, TrueNAS core is still rock solid stable but you have to be careful about the hardware you buy)

[mdedetrich]

Well, it can't be any worse than btrfs or bcachefs, which are both known for data corruption and other errors. And my goodness, before switching to OpenZFS I tried btrfs on all my data disks and it was so incredibly slow that I had to switch back to ext4. But thankfully CachyOS came along and solved my COW file system dilemma.

Just to be clear, there has bever been any known case of bcachefs causing data corruption (at least since its been mainlined into the kernel) and to boot it also has the experimental flag set

[pWe00Iri3e7Z9lHOX2Qx]

And hey, if it's good enough for OpenSUSE I'm confident it's good enough for me.

Just to be clear, ZFS is not officially supported in either SUSE or OpenSUSE. The packages live in the filesystem repo, which is not an official repo. The maintainer does a good job with the packaging, but the best change OpenSUSE has made for anyone wanting to run out of tree modules, is adding the kernel-longterm packages based on the latest LTS.

[darkdragon-001]

As far as I know, Josef is still working on it.

That comment is from more than a year ago. Unfortunately, I also don't have any more recent information.

[muncrief]

OpenZFS has had a data corruption issue in the past year IIRC related to reflink support (which I think they reverted). Errors wise I recall something related to hibernation or resuming from suspend? Neither of these may be relevant to you, but none of the FS are 100% immune to these concerns.

Yes, OpenZFS has had errors in the past, and I'm sure will have some in the future. As you said, no file system is immune to errors.

But OpenZFS is more mature than btrfs or bcachefs and has had less errors, and is less likely to have as many errors in the future, especially critical ones.

However one of the the beauties of Linux is the plethora of choices, and the freedom to make them. So those who believe btrfs or bcachefs are superior to OpenZFS can utilize those if they wish. However in my experience OpenZFS is the best option at the moment, especially with the CachyOS devs taking such care to maintain it.

[pWe00Iri3e7Z9lHOX2Qx]

For server that's not a problem in practice. If you are running a server, then you're also not running CachyOS or any other distro that lives on a bleeding edge kernel.

OP is running CachyOS on their home server, hence my comment. I don't mind running cherry picked compat change ZFS builds on my desktop where there's no important data that doesn't also exist on a server, the latter of which would never run unsupported kernel versions.

[polarathene]

Well, it can't be any worse than btrfs or bcachefs, which are both known for data corruption and other errors.

OpenZFS has had a data corruption issue in the past year IIRC related to reflink support (which I think they reverted). Errors wise I recall something related to hibernation or resuming from suspend? Neither of these may be relevant to you, but none of the FS are 100% immune to these concerns.

[ultimA]

No. CachyOS has no magic power to make ZFS work with mainline kernels. The only thing they can do is cherry pick early compat changes, just like everyone else trying to use ZFS with mainline. This is the same thing that the OpenSUSE ZFS maintainer does, and the same thing that people do when rolling their own. And ZFS does not "remain compatible" between kernel changes. Those early compat changes also can / do have bugs. If you care about your data, you shouldn't be relying on them, especially on a server.

For server that's not a problem in practice. If you are running a server, then you're also not running CachyOS or any other distro that lives on a bleeding edge kernel.

[muncrief]

No. CachyOS has no magic power to make ZFS work with mainline kernels. The only thing they can do is cherry pick early compat changes, just like everyone else trying to use ZFS with mainline. This is the same thing that the OpenSUSE ZFS maintainer does, and the same thing that people do when rolling their own. And ZFS does not "remain compatible" between kernel changes. Those early compat changes also can / do have bugs. If you care about your data, you shouldn't be relying on them, especially on a server.

Well, it can't be any worse than btrfs or bcachefs, which are both known for data corruption and other errors. And my goodness, before switching to OpenZFS I tried btrfs on all my data disks and it was so incredibly slow that I had to switch back to ext4. But thankfully CachyOS came along and solved my COW file system dilemma.

And hey, if it's good enough for OpenSUSE I'm confident it's good enough for me. The fact is that OpenZFS simply has no competition when it comes to features and performance. And while it's regrettable that Linux will not allow it into the mainline, if you want or need those features and performance OpenZFS is the only way to go, and CachyOS makes it effortless to do so.