I was wondering if anyone here has attempted the new “COW filesystem for Linux that won’t eat your data”.

It’s supposedly has been stable since the start of 2023. I’m willing to give it a try on Arch, but before I do, I’d like to hear if anyone has faced any issues with it.

6 points

I want to try it, but I’m definitely gonna wait a while first.

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1 point

How long do you think?

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2 points

Until you start seeing its reviews. Or else, you should try using it for data you can afford to lose (unimportant or backed up) - which is what reviewers would be doing anyway.

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1 point

Probably somewhere between kernel 6.8 and Fedora making it default (that’s broad I know). I’m guessing around kernel 7.

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5 points

I am unfamiliar with this filesystem, and am curious about it. Could someone explain to me its benefits over btrfs?

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4 points

From what I understand:

  • it has all btrfs features
  • it’s as performant as ext4 (with COW enabled)
  • it’s more stable than btrfs
  • it has built-in encryption, (no LUKS needed)

The page in Gentoo explains it’s features well

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3 points
*

I recall snapshots not being quite as cheap as on ZFS.

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1 point

Is there an article I can refer to? This isn’t an easy topic to search for.

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5 points

It’s still missing the send and receive features from btrfs. And while they say it’s more stable than btrfs, it’s yet to prove itself (through widespread use), and is marked as experimental in the kernel config.

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