Btrfs Zstd Support Coming To Linux 4.14

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Btrfs Zstd Support Coming To Linux 4.14

Queued in the btrfs-next tree for Linux 4.14 is Zstd compression support...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Btrfs-Zstd-Linux-4.14

[peppercats]

and my interest in ZFS just dropped to 0

[doublez13]

and my interest in ZFS just dropped to 0

Don't get me wrong, I love btrfs, but I'm curious why zstd is your defining feature? Btrfs has had two other compression formats for years now. And more importantly, zstd is NOT a compression formats that ZFS even supports.

[jacob]

Don't get me wrong, I love btrfs, but I'm curious why zstd is your defining feature? Btrfs has had two other compression formats for years now. And more importantly, zstd is NOT a compression formats that ZFS even supports.

I agree. This is nice to have but hardly a killer feature. For me the one advantage ZFS has is encryption support. Apart from that BTRFS is just fantastic.

[geearf]

Will it be smart to switch to zstd from lzo? On the last topic, the performance was still not as good but I don't know if it's meaningful.

[doublez13]

Will it be smart to switch to zstd from lzo? On the last topic, the performance was still not as good but I don't know if it's meaningful.

It's a very recent compression algorithm, and although I've got great hopes for it, I'd give it a few kernel cycles before even considering switching. Lzo is tried and tested

[geearf]

It's a very recent compression algorithm, and although I've got great hopes for it, I'd give it a few kernel cycles before even considering switching. Lzo is tried and tested

That seems a fair plan!

[caligula]

It's a very recent compression algorithm, and although I've got great hopes for it, I'd give it a few kernel cycles before even considering switching. Lzo is tried and tested

In the kernel land, lzo is often pretty boring and a wrong option. For kernel/initramfs/squashfs, there are a bunch of compression options. If you want speed, pick lz4, if compression ratio, pick xz. gzip/bzip2/lzo are pretty much failures most of the time - if you need something between the two, pick gzip. Especially lzo is boring as its only marginally more efficient than lz4, but often much muchslower. zstd, otoh, provides a reasonable option as a compromise between lz4 and xz, beating the three old farts hands down. I'm hoping that btrfs adopts more of those compression formats. There already was a patch for lz4, but it didn't get accepted. I wonder why..

[ormaaj]

I heard somewhere zfs was interested in adding zstd as an option. Not sure if there's a timeline or any active work on that though.

[ormaaj]

and my interest in ZFS just dropped to 0

I really doubt btrfs is going to magically leapfrog ZFS just by changing compression algorithm. Zfs has been consistently outdoing btrfs in almost every benchmark I've seen for many years.