Re: Recommendation for filesystem for USB external drive for backups
On 8/13/20 02:31, David Christensen wrote:
> On 8/12/20 5:14 PM, rhkramer@gmail.com wrote:
>> I'm getting closer to setting up a consistent backup plan, backing up
>> to an
>> external USB drive. I'm wondering about a reasonable filesystem to
>> use, I
>> think I want to stay in the ext2/3/4 family, and I'm wondering if
>> there is any
>> good reason to use anything beyond ext2?
>>
>> (Some day I'll try ZFS or BTRFS for my "system" filesystems, but don't
>> see any
>> point (and don't want to learn) either of them at this point -- I
>> don't see
>> much need for a backup filesystem.)
>>
>> But, I'll listen to opinions ;-)
>
> Without knowing anything about your resources, needs, expectations,
> "consistent backup plan", etc., and given the choices ext2, ext3, or
> ext4 for an external USB drive presumably to store backup repositories,
> I would also pick ext4.
>
>
> But, none of the ext* filesystems have bit rot protection. btrfs and
> ZFS do.
>
>
> btrfs is supported by the Debian Installer. I used btrfs for Debian
> system disks for several years. I discovered too late that btrfs
> requires routine maintenance (to balance its binary trees?). The disks
> got progressively slower and software started misbehaving. Notably,
> Thunderbird began losing messages when moving them from an IMAP folder
> to a local folder (!). I went back to ext4 for my Debian system disks.
>
>
> Due to GPL and CDDL license conflicts, Debian does not support ZFS OOTB.
> Notably, the Debian Installer lacks support for ZFS. (Some brave and
> skilled people have figured out how to install Debian with ZFS on root;
> STFW for details.) There is a 'contrib' ZFS kernel package available
> that can be installed on a working Debian system. This makes it
> possible to use ZFS for most everything except boot and root. ZFS is
> mature and reliable. I use ZFS for FreeBSD system disks, file server
> live data, backups, archives, and images. Migrating to ZFS was
> non-trivial, and I am still wresting with disaster preparedness.
Debian ZFS root (and boot) is not *that* hard; see the instructions at
https://openzfs.github.io/openzfs-docs/Getting%20Started/Debian/Debian%20Buster%20Root%20on%20ZFS.html
They certainly are not harder than installing early Debian releases (as
I remember it from around 20 years ago, and should not be hard for
anyone building a backup system and server. Installation as an
additional file system should not be notably different from installing a
file system package from main, except for the notice the GPL
incompatibility notice that will pop up during installation.
I would recommend installing from buster-backports to get the current
openzfs release which includes improvements (notably native encryption)
as well as fixes.
Tom Dial
>
>
> David
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