Concerns with BtrFS and ReFS
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@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@fuznutz04 said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@fuznutz04 said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@fuznutz04 said in KVM and Back Ups:
For example, I had a developer fubar a server the other day. Completely unrecoverable. It was hosted at vultr, and I used their backup service. I was able to completely restore the server from their snapshot backup. That’s what I am after.
That's not crash consistent. So THAT level of backup KVM can do without anything special, it's just taking a snapshot of the storage. You have that with any system because it is done at the storage layer.
What tools can I use to do that (scheduled) with KVM on fedora?
If you want the Vultr style (or ProxMox risky style), you can do that right from the storage layer. So first determine the storage that you are going to use. ZFS, BtrFS, XFS, LVM, etc. Then you use the native tools (if you want) to snap it. Everything except the scheduling is just built in.
What is the latest recommendation for storage now? LVM?
LVM, ZFS, BtrFS are all fine. I've not used this but here is a script to do LVM backups...
I am going on record here as recommending that you stay away from BtrFS... far, far away. I can't say anything about ZFS as I haven't used that... But around my office, we avoid BtrFS like the plague.
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@dafyre Fair enough. Any specific reason?
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@fuznutz04 said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre Fair enough. Any specific reason?
In my experience with it, it has often corrupted randomly and to the point that it's own snapshots are no help, nor are VMware Snapshots. In once case, we had to restore a snapshot going back nearly a month before we found good usable data. We are moving away from BtrFS at my current job.
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@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
In my experience with it, it has often corrupted randomly and to the point that it's own snapshots are no help, nor are VMware Snapshots.
How could it correct VMware snapshots?
I guess it's more that BtrFS doesn't detect the corruption early enough and our VMware snapshot are nothing but snapshots of corrupt data... That's about the only way I can explain it.
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@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
In my experience with it, it has often corrupted randomly and to the point that it's own snapshots are no help, nor are VMware Snapshots.
How could it correct VMware snapshots?
I guess it's more that BtrFS doesn't detect the corruption early enough and our VMware snapshot are nothing but snapshots of corrupt data... That's about the only way I can explain it.
Needs to catch up to ReFS
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@Obsolesce said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
In my experience with it, it has often corrupted randomly and to the point that it's own snapshots are no help, nor are VMware Snapshots.
How could it correct VMware snapshots?
I guess it's more that BtrFS doesn't detect the corruption early enough and our VMware snapshot are nothing but snapshots of corrupt data... That's about the only way I can explain it.
Needs to catch up to ReFS
Which itself needs to catch up to ZFS, gluster, md+LVM+any decent filesystem, etc.
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@Obsolesce said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
In my experience with it, it has often corrupted randomly and to the point that it's own snapshots are no help, nor are VMware Snapshots.
How could it correct VMware snapshots?
I guess it's more that BtrFS doesn't detect the corruption early enough and our VMware snapshot are nothing but snapshots of corrupt data... That's about the only way I can explain it.
Needs to catch up to ReFS
Um...... ReFS is known for lacking key features and being unstable and losing data. It's been ahead of ReFS all this time.
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@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@Obsolesce said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
In my experience with it, it has often corrupted randomly and to the point that it's own snapshots are no help, nor are VMware Snapshots.
How could it correct VMware snapshots?
I guess it's more that BtrFS doesn't detect the corruption early enough and our VMware snapshot are nothing but snapshots of corrupt data... That's about the only way I can explain it.
Needs to catch up to ReFS
Um...... ReFS is known for lacking key features and being unstable and losing data. It's been ahead of ReFS all this time.
No
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@Obsolesce said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@Obsolesce said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
In my experience with it, it has often corrupted randomly and to the point that it's own snapshots are no help, nor are VMware Snapshots.
How could it correct VMware snapshots?
I guess it's more that BtrFS doesn't detect the corruption early enough and our VMware snapshot are nothing but snapshots of corrupt data... That's about the only way I can explain it.
Needs to catch up to ReFS
Um...... ReFS is known for lacking key features and being unstable and losing data. It's been ahead of ReFS all this time.
No
I don't know what world you live in, but this is exactly what ReFS is known for. MS has all kinds of warnings about it, even.
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@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
In my experience with it, it has often corrupted randomly and to the point that it's own snapshots are no help, nor are VMware Snapshots.
How could it correct VMware snapshots?
I guess it's more that BtrFS doesn't detect the corruption early enough and our VMware snapshot are nothing but snapshots of corrupt data... That's about the only way I can explain it.
General risk with hypervisor level backups. This is a huge reason for either local file based or what I call devops backups. They are at a higher level, so there is way more opportunity for this.
But if the system was okay when you took the VMware snap, it should have been okay when you restored it. Regardless of corruption.
Yeah, exactly.... and this is why Snapshots are not a backup!
Snapshot = hypervisor backup. When people say that they want hypervisor level backups, that's code for "snapshot based backup". The snapshots are not the backup all by themselves, but they are the mechanism for the backup and any hypervisor backup system like Veeam or Unitrends or whatever would be affected by this just the same.
So would, in theory, agent based snapshot backup tools like StorageCraft.
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@Obsolesce said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@Obsolesce said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
In my experience with it, it has often corrupted randomly and to the point that it's own snapshots are no help, nor are VMware Snapshots.
How could it correct VMware snapshots?
I guess it's more that BtrFS doesn't detect the corruption early enough and our VMware snapshot are nothing but snapshots of corrupt data... That's about the only way I can explain it.
Needs to catch up to ReFS
Um...... ReFS is known for lacking key features and being unstable and losing data. It's been ahead of ReFS all this time.
No
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@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@Obsolesce said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@Obsolesce said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
In my experience with it, it has often corrupted randomly and to the point that it's own snapshots are no help, nor are VMware Snapshots.
How could it correct VMware snapshots?
I guess it's more that BtrFS doesn't detect the corruption early enough and our VMware snapshot are nothing but snapshots of corrupt data... That's about the only way I can explain it.
Needs to catch up to ReFS
Um...... ReFS is known for lacking key features and being unstable and losing data. It's been ahead of ReFS all this time.
No
I don't know what world you live in, but this is exactly what ReFS is known for. MS has all kinds of warnings about it, even.
The notes on this page don't say anything like you suggest:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/refs/refs-overview
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@Obsolesce said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@Obsolesce said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
In my experience with it, it has often corrupted randomly and to the point that it's own snapshots are no help, nor are VMware Snapshots.
How could it correct VMware snapshots?
I guess it's more that BtrFS doesn't detect the corruption early enough and our VMware snapshot are nothing but snapshots of corrupt data... That's about the only way I can explain it.
Needs to catch up to ReFS
Um...... ReFS is known for lacking key features and being unstable and losing data. It's been ahead of ReFS all this time.
No
The Windows world is suffering from the "Cult of ZFS" applied to ReFS. ZFS fails just like anything else, but people often worship it and do crazy things becaue of it. ReFS was created for the purpose of "porting" that behaviour to Windows because people flock to it. ReFS hasn't garnered as much insanity as the ZFS crowd, but it's also not a mature, robust system like ZFS either, nor is it groundbreaking like ZFS was. ReFS is just a ZFS-wanna be without the tooling, reliability and maturity... so the "blind faith" people are much fewer, but they are out there. Right now ReFS isn't nearly as reliable as NTFS, often considered less reliable than people would like (although greatly improved and not a problem today). But unlike NTFS where people expect risk and plan for it, ReFS plans for no risk and just fails when something actually goes wrong.
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@Obsolesce said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@Obsolesce said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@Obsolesce said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
In my experience with it, it has often corrupted randomly and to the point that it's own snapshots are no help, nor are VMware Snapshots.
How could it correct VMware snapshots?
I guess it's more that BtrFS doesn't detect the corruption early enough and our VMware snapshot are nothing but snapshots of corrupt data... That's about the only way I can explain it.
Needs to catch up to ReFS
Um...... ReFS is known for lacking key features and being unstable and losing data. It's been ahead of ReFS all this time.
No
I don't know what world you live in, but this is exactly what ReFS is known for. MS has all kinds of warnings about it, even.
The notes on this page don't say anything like you suggest:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/refs/refs-overview
Obviously MS selling their product isn't a viable reference. They have provided warnings in the past. Like everything MS, there is always at least one team pushing every product blindly.
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@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@Obsolesce said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@Obsolesce said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
In my experience with it, it has often corrupted randomly and to the point that it's own snapshots are no help, nor are VMware Snapshots.
How could it correct VMware snapshots?
I guess it's more that BtrFS doesn't detect the corruption early enough and our VMware snapshot are nothing but snapshots of corrupt data... That's about the only way I can explain it.
Needs to catch up to ReFS
Um...... ReFS is known for lacking key features and being unstable and losing data. It's been ahead of ReFS all this time.
No
The Windows world is suffering from the "Cult of ZFS" applied to ReFS. ZFS fails just like anything else, but people often worship it and do crazy things becaue of it. ReFS was created for the purpose of "porting" that behaviour to Windows because people flock to it. ReFS hasn't garnered as much insanity as the ZFS crowd, but it's also not a mature, robust system like ZFS either, nor is it groundbreaking like ZFS was. ReFS is just a ZFS-wanna be without the tooling, reliability and maturity... so the "blind faith" people are much fewer, but they are out there. Right now ReFS isn't nearly as reliable as NTFS, often considered less reliable than people would like (although greatly improved and not a problem today). But unlike NTFS where people expect risk and plan for it, ReFS plans for no risk and just fails when something actually goes wrong.
ReFS is not ZFS. Don't confuse them. They are not swappable technologies.
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ReFS depends on you having a software RAID mirror of it for its recovery. On its own ReFS' safetey mechanisms are largest missing (same with ZFS.) But this means you are trapped using a software RAID system that itself is often considered to be not production ready (thereby making ReFS not production.)
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@Obsolesce said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@Obsolesce said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@Obsolesce said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
@scottalanmiller said in KVM and Back Ups:
@dafyre said in KVM and Back Ups:
In my experience with it, it has often corrupted randomly and to the point that it's own snapshots are no help, nor are VMware Snapshots.
How could it correct VMware snapshots?
I guess it's more that BtrFS doesn't detect the corruption early enough and our VMware snapshot are nothing but snapshots of corrupt data... That's about the only way I can explain it.
Needs to catch up to ReFS
Um...... ReFS is known for lacking key features and being unstable and losing data. It's been ahead of ReFS all this time.
No
The Windows world is suffering from the "Cult of ZFS" applied to ReFS. ZFS fails just like anything else, but people often worship it and do crazy things becaue of it. ReFS was created for the purpose of "porting" that behaviour to Windows because people flock to it. ReFS hasn't garnered as much insanity as the ZFS crowd, but it's also not a mature, robust system like ZFS either, nor is it groundbreaking like ZFS was. ReFS is just a ZFS-wanna be without the tooling, reliability and maturity... so the "blind faith" people are much fewer, but they are out there. Right now ReFS isn't nearly as reliable as NTFS, often considered less reliable than people would like (although greatly improved and not a problem today). But unlike NTFS where people expect risk and plan for it, ReFS plans for no risk and just fails when something actually goes wrong.
ReFS is not ZFS. Don't confuse them. They are not swappable technologies.
I didn't, read what I wrote. ReFS is an attempt by MS to implement the ZFS-style FS for Windows to garner the same type of user base.
They are not swappable, ReFS is in no way actually competitive with ZFS.
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@KOOLER on ReFS performance issues... https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/log-structured-file-systems-microsoft-refs-v2-investigation-part-1
