Want to try btrfs. Is compress=lzo necessary?
 

Hello

I want to install arch linux with btrfs on my home PC. The reason is, i want to learn more linux with lot of experiments. Since i am newbie, and i'm sure i'll make a lot of mistakes, i need a facility to roll back - which btrfs gives through snapshots. Also, by learning btrfs, i can graduate to ZFS later.

I don't want to install arch on virtualbox, because i want to experience/experiment on real hardware not on some virtual hardware.

So, the problem that bothering me is this mount line 'compress=lzo'. I really don't need any compression on my fs. But every article, guides and video tutorials I've come across use compress=lzo in their article while mounting their fs. In one article, the author even warned not to miss compress=lzo option while mounting fs without giving any reason.

Now I'am confused. Should I put compression or not? I'm using regular 1 TB Seagate SATA HDD with 7200 RPM. Will there be any overhead if i put compression and slows down my PC?

Thanks

No, compression is not necessary. It's a fad. While it can save some space, it can also be a bottleneck in cases of multithreaded I/O operations.

Its really helpful. I'll go ahead without compression then.

Thanks

Depends. There are opposing factors at work

• If your cpu is fast and your disk slow, then compression will probably be faster
• If your disk is fast and your cpu slow, then compression will probably be slower

You could look here for some actual information but it is a couple of years old and potentially confusing (that's life for you I am afraid).

Thanks, i'll look at the link you mentioned. My system is old - Intel Core2Duo CPU E7500@2.93GHz, 8GB RAM, 1TB SATA HDD. I mainly use PC for browsing, videos/mp3 play, keep my documents and virtualbox (usually 2-3 linux guests without gui and win7 for ms-office). I don't play any kind of games.

Thanks

I believe the default compression is zlib. so if you don't specify "compress=no" that is what you will get.