btrfs makes old hdds appear to operate faster

**ventrical** · February 6th, 2013

I was just doing a followup on a suggestion in another thread and achieved a successful install using btrfs.

The hdd is a Maxtor 5T020H2 (TAH71D0P), 20GB (older).

**ventrical** · February 6th, 2013

at bootup I am still getting :

error: sparse file not allowed

**castrojo** · February 6th, 2013

It's a bug, it's nothing to be worried about: http://askubuntu.com/questions/10032...rfs-filesystem

You can just hit a key and it'll keep booting.

**tgalati4** · February 6th, 2013

Those older Maxtors are good drives. I've had one spinning for over 118,000 hours now.

Mine is a 20GB, Maxtor 92049U3.

Sounds like it's time to do some experimenting with btrfs.

**ventrical** · February 6th, 2013

Originally Posted by tgalati4

Those older Maxtors are good drives. I've had one spinning for over 118,000 hours now.

Mine is a 20GB, Maxtor 92049U3.

Sounds like it's time to do some experimenting with btrfs.

I loaded up some programs and then rebooted. Some programs seems to be indexed after the next boot, so they load real fast , ie; System Monitor, but it was not the case for Libre' Office Writer.

I am going to swap this drive into another system and then do an install on a faster hdd.

I cannot say , definitively for sure, that the one install so far is actually faster , but, by eyeballing it from previous installs, it appears to be working faster. More experiments needed.

**celluloid** · February 6th, 2013

Originally Posted by ventrical

I loaded up some programs and then rebooted. Some programs seems to be indexed after the next boot, so they load real fast , ie; System Monitor, but it was not the case for Libre' Office Writer.

I am going to swap this drive into another system and then do an install on a faster hdd.

I cannot say , definitively for sure, that the one install so far is actually faster , but, by eyeballing it from previous installs, it appears to be working faster. More experiments needed.

I've done a fair bit of testing of btrfs, partly because of pure curiosity & partly because I specialise in Linux storage technologies for work.

Are you using default mount flags in your fstab or are you specifying specific mount flags? See: https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Mount_options for your options, I found that the defrag and compression specific flags made some difference back when I was testing (late 12.04/12.10 dailies)

**ventrical** · February 6th, 2013

Originally Posted by castrojo

It's a bug, it's nothing to be worried about: http://askubuntu.com/questions/10032...rfs-filesystem

You can just hit a key and it'll keep booting.

Yes .. it is booting well in fact.

Thanks for the bug link.

**kevpan815** · 2 Weeks Ago

Originally Posted by ventrical

at bootup I am still getting :

error: sparse file not allowed

I got that error in Saucy.

**Slug71** · 3 Days Ago

Originally Posted by ventrical

at bootup I am still getting :

error: sparse file not allowed

I have this same issue with 13.04. Just hit any key and it will look for a BTRFS filesystem and then continue to boot.

Just curious, is any updates are made to BTRFS between now and 13.10, will my filesystem be updated with an inplace update to 13.10 or will I need to do a reinstall? Especially thinking about if new features are enabled by default.

**ventrical** · 2 Days Ago

Originally Posted by Slug71

I have this same issue with 13.04. Just hit any key and it will look for a BTRFS filesystem and then continue to boot.

Just curious, is any updates are made to BTRFS between now and 13.10, will my filesystem be updated with an inplace update to 13.10 or will I need to do a reinstall? Especially thinking about if new features are enabled by default.

Good question. I would assume however, that an actual update to the format infrastructure would not be likely but there may be an append of features and I would wonder how they would solve depends without having to re-install or reformatting the storage device.