I’ve always wondered, given the warnings in documentation, if there are any people brave enough to try Btrfs in a RAID5/6 configuration. Has anyone here actually tried it with “real” data?

  • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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    1 year ago

    Given how flexible RAID1 in btrfs is, I don’t really see any benefit in using RAID5/6.

  • JuxtaposedJaguar
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    1 year ago

    If the people on Phoronix are to be believed, it’s a buggy mess that will eat your data. Either way I would recommend using LVMRAID (as it’s much more mature) and putting BTRFS on top. Then you can put DM-Crypt between them and get easy FDE.

      • _HR_@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yes, as in, there were people using Btrfs RAID 5/6. It didn’t end well. Not that I’ve used it - I very much prefer having my data safe.

        The warnings in the docs are there for a reason - those modes of Btrfs simply aren’t finished and thus aren’t fit to be used.

        You can test this yourself easily in a VM, this will let you see how things fail for Btrfs 5/6 when one of the disks “fails”.

  • The Doctor@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    There are some folks over on aliensite that have been using RAID-5 and -6 for a while. Personally I’ve never tried it, because my use case needs the data redundancy more than the disk space.

    As far as I know, as long as you’re not worried about either your data or a sudden power failure, they’re pretty solid. It’s a sudden system outage that is the danger.

  • Thief@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    Fragile. Works great when its working. When thjngs go wrong it’s difficult to see how anything can be salvaged.

  • jyte@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It depends on what you call “real” data.

    I find it good enough for home NAS that serve as jellyfin instance and store a hell lot of stuff. Things I would rather keep, but anything really critical is stored on several computers.

    Works well so far (about 4 or 5 years already now) with raid5 for data but raid1 for metadata.

  • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I tried it probably a decade ago and it ended badly.

    The last time I checked it seemed like “the powers that be” running btrfs had shifted focus away from raid 5/6 because enterprises didn’t care about it.

    • nani8ot
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      1 year ago

      Iirc there’s a big upcoming change that improves how btrfs works internally. This might improve btrfs raid 5/6. But yeah, currently it is recommended against btrfs raid 5/6