I'm looking for a good, solid and flexible file system for my home server.
Currently I'm using XFS ontop of LVM2 but this does not provide enougth error detection/resilience.
Just recently I had to replace two drives because of bad sectors also some files where corrupted and it's hard to find them with this combination.
So I was looking at ZFS but this is also not optimal for my situation, like my combination it's not possible to remove drives entirely, only replacing is possible also if more drives fail than available redundancy then the whole FS is dead.

What I need is full CRC for all data and metadata like optical discs have with EDC/ECC (Reed–Solomon error correction) so bit rot and other small errors won't kill my files.
If there are errors I want to know it, also what files are affected and on what drive.
Also I want to be able to add and remove drives as I please regardless of disc size (and I wish to use every GB of free space), files should not be splitted across multiple drives.
If a drive completely failes I still want to be able to access the files on the other drives which are still good.
Transparent compression would be nice but not necessary.
I don't need high performence it's sufficient if a gigabit lan is saturated.

Does such a file system exist?
What would you recommend?
What are you using on your home servers?

It's called an uninterruptible power-supply ...

Actually, I'm quite serious. A good UPS will not only absorb the occasional power-flick, but it will also stabilize the input power-levels so that they are exactly 110 or 220 volts as the case may be. Disk drives use direct current motors, which are sensitive to power levels because they alter the RPMs of the platters ... a thing which today's high-capacity drives cannot withstand.

Beyond that, simply ensure that the system is properly set up to "go to sleep," e.g. when the laptop's lid is closed, so that the pragmatic possibility of a failed or not-performed I/O operation is reduced to acceptably-near zero.

UPS !!!

then use your distros default file system ( NOT LVM for home use )
lvm is nice but for one computer at home ??? it is more trouble than it is worth ( and will NEED a UPS) .

EXT3 or EXT4 are very common
and ext4 is a bit better than the bit older ext3

i have one box ( an older one using ext3 and now ext4 (-- NO UPS) and have not had any issues with the few power flickers and two outages while using it ( other than the data I was working on at the time )

I assume you're talking about a home server? Whether LVM is useful will depend on exactly what you've got on it, but even then it may be more trouble than it's worth. I've always used Red Hat/Fedora/CentOS, but I've never let them give me LVM.

Systems like XFS are great for big company servers, but ext4 should do you.

Basically, your problem is your hardware — bad sectors, dead disks — and no filing system is a remedy against that. Fix your power supply, make sure you keep track of the output from SMART, and backup every day.

I don't have an UPS and I don't think it is really necessary, the HDD uses 12V for its motor and ATX has a 5% (or even 10%?) tolerance on that so the HDD should work normally within 12V+/-5%.

I'm running my LVM+XFS combination for years now, already added and exchanged some drives without problems.
My problem is failing drives and maybe bit rot, I need a file system which can tell me if a file is corrupt and EXT2/3/4 can't do this just like XFS, there is ZFS with Raid-Z1 like Raid5 which would be capable of this and also restoring defect files but I would need to add 5 drives to not waste too much space and if more than one drive fails the FS is dead.

Yeah I'm running a home server for mostly media and setup files for the LAN and I don't need a backup on those.
SMART is good to find the failed drive but then it's already too late some files are already corrupted then and I don't know what files.

My PSU works and the servers current uptime is 46 days without any UPS, I only reboot it for updates from time to time.
I need the LVM to combine multiple physical drives into a single logical one, a single drive is just not enough.


I'm planning on a new server and I want it to be reliable and error resilient so I want ECC memory and a file system capable of telling me if my files are good or not but I wont need backups or an UPS.

Hi,

Welcome to LQ!
Where do you think that 12 VDC comes from? As to the tolerance measurements that is the output related to a constant source.

You come asking for solid advice and get very useful information from experienced members then do not accept.
You should consider backups

Then get a SSD. Seriously, bit rot? Not with modern spinning disks, bit rot as you call it, is actually called decay due to irregular layer or surface impurities. Prove it! You should use backups and a UPS if you value the equipment & filesystem. Your solution reminds me of the a Road-runner cartoon where the coyote keeps adding to the rocket to get more power and when he lights the fuse; BOOM!

SMART is a good thing to use on a regular maintenance schedule so that you will know the state. Along with your backup a restore to new hardware will insure to get you to a known good state with proper backup procedure. We are not speaking of a singular backup system but a good grandfathering system.

As other members have stated that could be when you have unnoticed power situations, brownouts, dips or transients that can get through your PSU to damage equipment. That is why you use a UPS to provide a constant filtered source to that working PSU.

Then expect future problems on that new piece of equipment that you invested more $$ for. Look at UPS & backups as insurance, you only need them when something happens. No magic filesystem will insure against power issues nor equipment failures or other unknown issues.

I suggest that you do a LQ Search as you are not the first to query along these lines.

HTH!