f2fs or ext4

Hu · Moderator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 21619

True, the drive microcontroller is the one that would track this. For better or worse, people have come to treat the microcontroller and its associated software as "firmware" and only consider software as software when it runs on a device we have some hope of reprogramming. Given that, my earlier post might be clearer if every reference to software was read as "the operating system controlling the user's computer" and references to hardware were "hardware/firmware".

pietinger · Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2021 10:01 pm Post subject:

pa4wdh · l33t Joined: 16 Dec 2005 Posts: 812

pa4wdh · l33t Joined: 16 Dec 2005 Posts: 812

Zucca · Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2021 9:54 am Post subject:

The_Great_Sephiroth · Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2021 4:53 pm Post subject:

Been away for a while, but as far as a few questions go, I may have the answers. F2FS supports compression because it further reduces writes. It explains this in the documentation. Compression is not "scope-creep", it is something which was just not there in the beginning. Also, the argument for using F2FS on dumb devices (devices without an FTL) was due to many early devices not doing wear-leveling and such, which F2FS can do. However, it works fine with modern devices which have an FTL and does not attempt to override the FTL. As for checksums, it was something that, whether added as a response to requests or not, makes me trust the FS more. We all know the bit-rot occurs on SSDs just like on HDDs, so a checksum can save your behind sometimes. Still not as nice as BTRFS with DUP or a RAID mode which duplicates data, but it's better than saving a corrupted file or attempting to load some corrupted data, especially if said data sits near the kernel.

Zucca, how is BTRFS "slow"? It always comes up close tot he top in speed tests on everything I have seen, both on Phoronix and other sites. It is faster than NTFS on my gaming rig (I use the Windows port of BTRFS since ReFS is only for businesses now) and unless we're talking specifically about single SSD usage, I am confused. I generally use BTRFS on single HDDs in DUP mode with compression, multiple HDDs in RAID, or on multiple SSDs in RAID. I will NOT use it on a single SSD which is where BTRFS does indeed get slow.
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dmpogo · Advocate Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3267 Location: Canada

eccerr0r · Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2021 8:33 pm Post subject:

Indeed, the proprietary driver issue is one thing, but for the sake of this particular issue, assume specs are clearly available AND a reference source code driver, though lacking features or optimizations, is distributed.
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Zucca · Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2021 6:29 am Post subject:

dmpogo · Advocate Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3267 Location: Canada

The_Great_Sephiroth · Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2021 7:53 pm Post subject:

As somebody who still purchases dedicated video and audio hardware I can say that both make a noticeable difference to this day. Not in terms of speed of the system, but in terms of audio quality and heck, let's see you play Ark on epic settings on an Intel HD chipset.

Also, not sure how you were setup, but I have 8TiB RAID10 setups (4TiB x 4) and it takes maybe 30min to balance. I am assuming mixing and matching drive models and sizes is your issue, but I have never done such a thing. I am old-school in my RAID configurations and match everything.
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Ever picture systemd as what runs "The Borg"?

Zucca · Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2021 7:17 pm Post subject: Yup.

The_Great_Sephiroth · Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2021 3:04 pm Post subject:

Well FWIW, in my professional life (my career), we order identical drives when setting up a NAS/SAN/RAID system and have never had them all fail at the same moment in time. Normally one goes and we replace it with an identical model and keep trucking for months or even years. I do get it though. I have stuff dating back to the 90's and DOS 6.22 on my drives. Pictures included. I'd hate to lose them.
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Ever picture systemd as what runs "The Borg"?

Zucca · Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2021 8:24 pm Post subject:

Yes. This is paranoia of some level, but also consumer hard drives...
Also I like to expand my storage sometimes, so my solution is to upgrade each hard drive whenever one is retired. In other words: get a bigger one to replace it.

We're derailing into ot territory here now. ;)
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pa4wdh · l33t Joined: 16 Dec 2005 Posts: 812

dmpogo · Advocate Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3267 Location: Canada

Hu · Moderator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 21619

The OS could, with the assistance of the administrator, know that some writes are expected to be read-mostly for a long time, and so would preferentially send those to well worn areas, so as to conserve unworn areas for data that will be rewritten often. More generally, I think there is a suspicion that the authors of the drive firmware just want to get something that works well enough the drive can be sold, not returned under warranty, and not get terrible reviews in the press. Beyond that, they don't care to do an optimal job. For example, some early SSDs earned a bad reputation because their TRIM functionality, while not broken, was implemented in the naive way: immediately trim now, blocking all other activity in the interim. Later, more clever drives improved on this, by offering queuing of the commands for later execution, and prioritizing regular work ahead of trimming work. If the control had been in the kernel, a simple kernel upgrade would offer this improvement to everyone. Since control was in the firmware, only people who can and do upgrade their drive firmware get the better behavior. Since most firmware is extremely proprietary, some - maybe even most - people who bought the naive drives were unable to get the improvement at all, because their drive vendor didn't see it worth the effort to write and release a smarter firmware.

Authors of the kernel want to get the best value for the money paid for the drive, because in many cases they are running the kernel on that drive, so it's their personal money at stake. Thus, they will consider various optimizations that a firmware author would think are not worth the time to write. Also, kernels are much easier to upgrade than drive firmware. Firmware authors are understandably reluctant to have "new and improved" drive firmware posted every few months. On the kernel side, it is routine that a new kernel comes out every few months.

pa4wdh · l33t Joined: 16 Dec 2005 Posts: 812

Zucca · Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2021 5:16 pm Post subject:

Back in the days even the head movement was controlled by the OS iirc. ;)
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dmpogo · Advocate Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3267 Location: Canada

dmpogo · Advocate Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3267 Location: Canada

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sat Oct 16, 2021 9:40 am Post subject:

pa4wdh · l33t Joined: 16 Dec 2005 Posts: 812

LOL, i wonder what was read from the floppy while it made that music

Tony0945 · Posted: Sat Oct 16, 2021 1:26 pm Post subject:

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sat Oct 16, 2021 1:33 pm Post subject:

pa4wdh,

Some SD cards are hardware optimised for VFAT, so that access to the file allocation table is fast.
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Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.