btrfs makes old hdds appear to operate faster

[benmoran]

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.

Just by matter of using the newer Kernel, the filesystem will be automatically "upgraded".
If you create a btrfs filesystem with Ubuntu 12.04 for example, and then mount it with a 13.04 live USB, you'll see some references to this in the /var/log/syslog (or dmesg output). I forget exactly off the top of my head, but you'll see the system detecting the older format and handling it seamlessly.
Also, I've done this is reverse as well. You can usually still mount a newer btrfs filesystem with an older kernel without trouble. I think for now it's unlikely to break compatibility.

[Slug71]

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.

Just by matter of using the newer Kernel, the filesystem will be automatically "upgraded".
If you create a btrfs filesystem with Ubuntu 12.04 for example, and then mount it with a 13.04 live USB, you'll see some references to this in the /var/log/syslog (or dmesg output). I forget exactly off the top of my head, but you'll see the system detecting the older format and handling it seamlessly.
Also, I've done this is reverse as well. You can usually still mount a newer btrfs filesystem with an older kernel without trouble. I think for now it's unlikely to break compatibility.

Thanks.

I don't like doing new installs on my production machines every release. Prefer to wait and stick to LTS releases. If I do upgrade between LTS releases, I usually do in-place upgrades. So would be nice to take advantages of updates/features without having to do a reinstall unless I really have to. Becomes a PITA trying to stay on top of numerous devices/machines and testing...


Anyway, 13.04 is notably faster on my Netbook over 12.10. Not sure if it's the OS or BTRFS or both, but I'm happy. Now on to 13.10.

[ventrical]

I just had a major btrfs crash on one of my raring installs. I think it was prompted by intermittent power supply problems with connector. That install is now locked in a frozen , perpetual install. I cannot uninstall apt-btrfs-snapshot nor can I update/upgrade current install but I can roll_back to old_root, however, rolling back does not fix btrfs lock problem. I will try Recovery mode/mount and see if I can update from there.