Btrfs RAID5/6... anyone here every tried it?
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?
View original on lemmy.sdf.org
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.
If the devs say "unstable", it's probably unstable.
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.
Some people in the comments of this claims to use it with real data https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.2-Btrfs-EXT4
If you use it don't forget to use RAID1 for metadata
Yes.
I'd like to hear more. Are you still using it? What's kind of data do/did you store on it?
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".
Given how flexible RAID1 in btrfs is, I don't really see any benefit in using RAID5/6.