Although I've been using btrfs for the best part of 10 years I have not really done justice to it, because I have neither explored nor used enough most of its features. I am now thinking of installing Gentoo on btrfs again, but this time I want to optimise the structure of btrfs subvolumes, to simplify snapshots and backups.
I see Ubuntu and derivates install the OS root fs under btrfs subvolume "@" and /home under subvolume "@home". This makes storing snapshots of the two subvolumes under the btrfs top-volume, which remains unmounted, cleaner and reduces the chance of mixing up the fs you may end up in and operate on (live, or snapshot). I have 3 partitions for /boot(ESP), / and /home, but have not yet created additional partitions for general data storage and backups. What's your recommended approach and subvolume structure for the deployment of btrfs on Gentoo for a personal PC, if the primary objective is simplicity in maintenance, combined with ease of fs recovery? Any gotchas I should be mindful of? Your favoured snapshot/backup strategy? NOTES: The Gentoo wiki pages[1],[2] cover btrfs and RAID configurations, but I found some of it confusing; e.g.: The impact of autodefrag on VM performance is noted, but then the example given proceeds to mount a subvolume for VM storage with 'autodefrag'. :-/ Encryption is mentioned for VMs "... if the VM uses drive encryption, the whole compression strategy gets blown out of the water" but doesn't mention what type of encryption, or why/how this presents a problem. Given btrfs does not offer fs level encryption, what could/would work to encrypt a subvolume, *without* requiring an initrd, or the introduction of encryption becoming orthogonal with snapshots and backups? I am not clear on the best strategy and components to achieve this. I'm also concerned of introducing an additional complexity layer in trying to recover btrfs when/if fs corruption creeps in. PS. Please keep answers specific to btrfs, as comparisons with zfs are well covered in the interwebs. [1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Btrfs [2] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Btrfs/Native_System_Root_Guide
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