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0 pointsRinzler891y ago0 comments

>It's a high-end high-performance Sandisk USB drive

That doesn't mean much. How high end? USB thumb drives are still much slower than SSDs or even HDDs.

>Regardless, I still expect the choice of filesystem to not hard freeze my OS.

That's a very particular filesystem, that's not designed for such hardware. OF course you'll run into issues. The FS expects data at a throughput that the ARM controller in the USB thumb drive can't deliver. OF course it will have issues.

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sevg1y ago

Yeah, no.

You're overestimating how much overhead btrfs has. 500MB/s read/write is way more than it needs. I wasn't even doing any sustained writes.

In any case, I've been burned by btrfs issues on SSDs several times since 2018. Metadata issues, unrecoverable problems, corruption.

If you're ok with a filesystem causing hard freezes, then all power to you.

Not me. In my world, a filesystem that has this many issues is not a filesystem I want to use.

Edit: Can't reply to your reply. So here will do. Irrelevant how fast the USB is. If the filesystem has to do things slower, then simply do things slower. There's no excuse for hard freezes.

> You're trying to drive a Ferrari on a dirt road and claiming the dirt road is ar fault when your Ferrari has issues.

So btrfs in this metaphor is the Ferrari? Yes, my Ferrari definitely 100% has issues XD

Anyway, this particular USB drive I was able to push to the limit with XFS. Sustained reads and writes. Way more than the manufacturer would have tested for. And no freezes. I rest my case.

Rinzler89OP1y ago

>500MB/s read/write is way more than it needs. I wasn't even doing any sustained writes.

Benchmarked or claimed? For 500MB files or 4kb?

>If you're ok with a filesystem causing hard freezes, then all power to you.

To me it never caused that and I used in on some slow ass 5200 rpm HDDs. You have to understand that the firmware on the flash controller on that USB Stick was'nt built or tested for the workloads BTRFS triggers. Even some nvme SSDs are reported to act weird under it because the manufacturer tests the firmware for FAT/NTFS loads not BTRFS or other such FSs. So the issues is with your Thumb drive firmware which is independent of the claimed 500mb raw sequencial throughouput.

You're trying to drive a Ferrari on a dirt road and claiming the dirt road is ar fault when your Ferrari has issues.

sevg1y ago

Ah, HN is letting me reply now.

Irrelevant how fast the USB is. If the filesystem has to do things slower, then simply do things slower. There's no excuse for hard freezes.

> You're trying to drive a Ferrari on a dirt road and claiming the dirt road is ar fault when your Ferrari has issues.

So btrfs in this metaphor is the Ferrari? Yes, I agree with you that my Ferrari definitely 100% has issues XD

You keep talking about btrfs workloads as though it's something crazy for usb firmware to handle. It really isn't. There's a bit of performance overhead, but not so much as to be unusable. And it's just I/O at the end of the day, not some mysterious workload that pushes the wrong buttons. USB firmware is more likely to freak out when doing sustained I/O and the thing gets too hot.

Anyway, I did minimal writes with btrfs before the freezes, and this particular USB drive I was able to push to the limit with XFS. Sustained reads and writes in a benchmark workload. Way more than the manufacturer would have tested for. And no freezes. I rest my case.

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