Hi, soon I'll be replacing the system disks and will copy over the existing system to the new disks. I'm wondering how much merit there would be in being able to make snapshots to be able to revert back to a previous state when updating software or when installing packages to just try them out.
To be able to make snapshots, I could use btrfs on the new disks. When using btrfs, I could use the hardware RAID-1 as I do now, or I could use the raid features of btrfs instead to create a RAID-1. Is it worthwhile to use btrfs? Am I going to run into problems when trying to boot from the new disks when I use btrfs? Am I better off using the hardware raid or software raid if I use btrfs? The installation/setup is simple: 2x3.5" are to be replaced by 2x2.5", each 15krpm, 72GB SAS disks, so no fancy partioning is involved. (I need the physical space to plug in more 3.5" disks for storage. Sure I have considered SSDs, but they would cost 20 times as much and provide no significant advantage in this case.) I could just replace one disk after the other and let the hardware raid do it all for me. A rebuilt takes only 10 minutes or so. Then I could convert the file system to btrfs, or leave it as is. That might even be the safest bet because I can't miss anything when copying. (What the heck do I have it for? :) ) Suggestions?
