[Discuss] what are pros/cons of different (Linux) filesystems for use with SMR (shingled) hard drives?

Bill Bogstad bogstad at pobox.com
Fri Nov 13 17:34:36 EST 2020


An external USB drive that I use solely for full and incremental
backups is developing bad blocks. For pricing reasons, I'm going with
a new drive which uses SMR for recording.   I backup with rsync and a
hard link tree  for incrementals which means that file data is
typically not overwritten at the file level.  Metadata of old files
changes when a hard link in a new incremental is made to the
preexisting file.   Are there any things I should watch out for this
use case?   Particular filesystems that are either good or bad for SMR
drives?  I obviously want the system to be reliable, but I doubt that
making the system rewrite shingles over and over again due to frequent
updates to the same disk blocks is good for the longevity of the
drive.  Any info/opinions appreciated.

Thanks,
Bill Bogstad


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