Nice video, well explained and no time wasting. Pros and cons of each file system. I went with BTRFS for my Synology and am happy that I did; BTRFS is so flexible.
At first I was eh on BTRFS but then after using it I love it. Without compression or anything just by the copy on write and light snapshots it’s such an efficient file system that has been implemented perfectly
One exception for the use of EXT4 over BTRFS is probably the continuos recording and over writing of CCTV images, less fragmentation, less of a performance hit. Thats about the only scenario I can think of where EXT4 would have the advantage. I did see a small article from Synology about this but i can't find it now. Make your recording volume EXT4, everything else BTRFS. Great video.
Thanks for the video. I cannot see and great features in BTRFS above EXT4. EXT4 is much more secured, stable and even faster. Will stay with EXT4 on my Asustor AS3302T )
Thank you for this video and explanation. Is it possible for you to do a video on how to change the file system from Ext4 to BTRFS if someone has a synology nas with EXT4 only? thank you.
Note Synology BTRFS depending when you created the btrfs file system the integrity might be disabled by default (only dual redundant meta data is available) you have to enable it at filesystem creation time and can't be enabled or disabled afterwards (it was hidden under the adv tab but recent updates have not hid it under an adv option anymore) Synology website docs does say its enabled by default (so might be a new version at some point that they enabled it by default, as the integrity option used to be hidden under the adv menu, so a lot of people from a year+ ago might actually be running without integrity) If it's disabled you have to recreate the btrfs file system to enable it Trying to find a recant video of someone actually creating the btrfs file system to see if the integrity option is pre ticked by default now (as 6-12 months ago it wasn't ticked by default and only meta data was dual protected, no data protection), as it has a performance impact having it enabled witch I believe is why it wasn't enabled by default (old versions of Synology software had the integrity option hidden behind a show adv options menu, later versions didn't hide it integrity wasn't ticked be default)
Hello SpaceRex! I finally took the plunge and upgraded to DSM 7 without problem. I now want to convert to BTRFS. I really want to know if I follow these steps, everything will work fine or am I missing something: 1) I backed up all of my data on an external drive. I have the NAS mapped as the following: p: (photos) V: (Videos) Z: (Documents) 2) Enter into DSM and go to Storage Manager 3) Remove current storage pool 4) Create a new volume 5) Format to BTRFS 6) copy data back from external to the NAS. 7) Recreate the P, V, an Z drives 8) copy data into each of those drives Please confirm that this is the best way to complete the conversion. As always, I love your beard! Thanks!
Yes this is what you would do! For the backup I would use hyper backup to an external drive (if you have one) and triple check everything is there before your format.
So that’s actually BTRFS RAID which has a write hole. To get around this synology uses MDADM for RAID with BTRFS on top of it. This is why it’s so stable and does not have those kinds of issues
You too! Yeah BTRFS is a bit of a wild file system and would not recommend people run it on their own builds, but since synology controls the full setup they have it pretty much perfect. their setup pretty much works perfectly and because of the healing aspect has wayyyy better data security then ext4
Hi I just find the time to work again on my DS216j with two bays. I have it setup as 1 Volume with ext4. Wondering if I can change to btrf and best way how. Reason for the change is I use the NAS as main backup for my Laptops (3) and want to have easy recovery. I do plan to sore pictures from Google Cloud here as well as backup. Do I need to perform a full factory reset? Note, I do not have yet a lot of data on the NAS that is worth to keep. Thanks.
Hello, At 1:50 you refer that you need RAD1/SHR in order to perform data scrubbing. I have a test configuration of SHR-1, two discs, and it says I cannot do data scrubbing. It says something like nota vailable to EXT4 or less than 3 drives. Running DSM 7.1.1-42962 Update 3 I don't mind of not automatically self healing as I have cold backup of the NAS. I would be happy with check summing and alert for a corrupt file. But it doesn't seem to allow scrubbing, so how can it be done with RAID1/SHR1 as you say? Thank you.
@@SpaceRexWill But with BTRFS it allowed me with just two drives. I assume because as BTRFS allows for checksums, we don't need 3 drives for detecting and correcting errors, right? Am I thinking correctly? With a DS220+ with two drives in SHR1 (Equivalent to RADI1) and BTRFS, I can protect against bit rot and other types of data corruption. Not only detect but also "heal", right? I really need to be sure as I am implementing this from scratch and will be my setup for the next 5-10 years. Thank you very much for your help, here in particular and your channel in general :)
Great video - but a question. I recently set purchased and set up a DS220j and just 10 days later the DS220+ went on sale for $60 OFF so I pulled the trigger. I know I can migrate my data fairly easily, but what about the file system? I'd like to take advantage of the BTFRS file system. Can I do this in the migration, or will I have to start over with my set up?
Hi, thank for these helpful videos. Can you make a tutorial to migrate from ext4 to btrfs on a 2 bay DS224+ system. The disks were previously used on an older synology NAS. I assume i will need to wipe a disk? Thanks
unfortunately your best bet is to backup the files to an external hard drive then rebuild the pool (make sure you have at least 2 copies of any important files)
@@SpaceRexWill I just had the same question, thanks for the answer, I know it was 9 months ago, but as you can see I had the same question. Would you say this would be a good test for hyper backup and restore?
Was thinking of using BTRFS on my DS220+ but I'm worried about the slower speeds. I already have a bit of lag when streaming videos from it and I'm using EXT4. If I was using BTRFS wouldn't that make it even slower?
I am soon to purchase a DS1520+ in which I plan to have a BTRFS volume consisting of three 6TB drives for data (and a fourth bay for expansion), and an SSD (512GB?) for DSM and other software. The software drive doesn't need any redundancy features because if something happens to the software, I'll just reinstall from up-to-date sources. I'm thinking that EXT4 might be the better choice for formatting the SSD, since it will have slightly better performance. What do you recommend?
Running/Storing VM drive files on BTRFS is painful and awful, in both unraid and truenas i had major problems, a switch to EXT4 and problems gone. Sadly Synology disallows EXT4 with its Virtual Manager software.
Great video but... I just bought myself a new DS that supports btfrs (DS220+). Until now I have been using old DS214play without this feature. I am about to migrate (the new maching is just being shipped). My question is: how can I move to btfrs on my new machine without having to install the server from scratch? I am using 2 disk RAID 1. Thanks in advanced for you help.
I started with one volume on my DS1815+, and I used EXT4. I have seen that I should have used BTRFS and have created a 2nd volume with BTRFS, how can I convert my 1st volume from EXT4 to BTRFS?
@@SpaceRexWill ok thanks I really don't know what I am going to do since everything still works okay, it would just be good to have everything on BTRFS.
Quite honestly, BTRFS is a nice file system, but you'll get a performance hit when using virtual machines. In fact, very bad performance due so many checksums taxing the hard drives. Not to mention the CPU and memory in Synology hardware is not the latest and greatest. It's just a fancy network storage drive that doesn't need much processing power. To really run virtual machines, you'll need a fully dedicated Type 1 Hypervisor (bare metal) , not some mickey mouse software running on top Synology OS. 😂😂😂
Btrfs sucks a$$. False sense of security. You screw up or something happens you can kiss your data good bye. Ext4 at least you have a much better chance to recover data.
Nice video, well explained and no time wasting.
Pros and cons of each file system. I went with BTRFS for my Synology and am happy that I did; BTRFS is so flexible.
At first I was eh on BTRFS but then after using it I love it. Without compression or anything just by the copy on write and light snapshots it’s such an efficient file system that has been implemented perfectly
One exception for the use of EXT4 over BTRFS is probably the continuos recording and over writing of CCTV images, less fragmentation, less of a performance hit. Thats about the only scenario I can think of where EXT4 would have the advantage. I did see a small article from Synology about this but i can't find it now. Make your recording volume EXT4, everything else BTRFS. Great video.
Thanks for the video. I cannot see and great features in BTRFS above EXT4. EXT4 is much more secured, stable and even faster. Will stay with EXT4 on my Asustor AS3302T )
Thank you for this video and explanation. Is it possible for you to do a video on how to change the file system from Ext4 to BTRFS if someone has a synology nas with EXT4 only? thank you.
Thank you - was torn on the speed issue but have opted to go with BTRFS with my new synology upgrade!
Note Synology BTRFS depending when you created the btrfs file system the integrity might be disabled by default (only dual redundant meta data is available)
you have to enable it at filesystem creation time and can't be enabled or disabled afterwards (it was hidden under the adv tab but recent updates have not hid it under an adv option anymore)
Synology website docs does say its enabled by default (so might be a new version at some point that they enabled it by default, as the integrity option used to be hidden under the adv menu, so a lot of people from a year+ ago might actually be running without integrity)
If it's disabled you have to recreate the btrfs file system to enable it
Trying to find a recant video of someone actually creating the btrfs file system to see if the integrity option is pre ticked by default now (as 6-12 months ago it wasn't ticked by default and only meta data was dual protected, no data protection), as it has a performance impact having it enabled witch I believe is why it wasn't enabled by default (old versions of Synology software had the integrity option hidden behind a show adv options menu, later versions didn't hide it integrity wasn't ticked be default)
Love you videos. They are so helpful. If possible, can you do a tutorial on how to convert a Synology from Ext4 to Btrfs? please and thank you.
btrfs crashed all my data. electricity corruption. but same situation ext4 file system i can recovered my data.
Sounds like getting a Pure Sine Wave UPS is a good idea.
China
Another good video, thanks for the explanation. Subscribed.
Happy it was helpful!
Hello SpaceRex! I finally took the plunge and upgraded to DSM 7 without problem. I now want to convert to BTRFS. I really want to know if I follow these steps, everything will work fine or am I missing something:
1) I backed up all of my data on an external drive. I have the NAS mapped as the following:
p: (photos)
V: (Videos)
Z: (Documents)
2) Enter into DSM and go to Storage Manager
3) Remove current storage pool
4) Create a new volume
5) Format to BTRFS
6) copy data back from external to the NAS.
7) Recreate the P, V, an Z drives
8) copy data into each of those drives
Please confirm that this is the best way to complete the conversion. As always, I love your beard!
Thanks!
Yes this is what you would do! For the backup I would use hyper backup to an external drive (if you have one) and triple check everything is there before your format.
Is it safe to do Data Scrubbing if you are using Synology Surveillance Station with 40-50 cameras working?
It was easy to understand. Thanks :)
Happy to help!
I know that with EXT4, one can expand their NAS as in add drives to appropriately set up RAID (such as 5). Can BTRFS systems handle drive expansion?
Thanks for the tips
What about BTRFS in raid configurations, is it 100% tested safe? An old admin at work claims btrfs with raid is unreliable / exprimental..
So that’s actually BTRFS RAID which has a write hole. To get around this synology uses MDADM for RAID with BTRFS on top of it. This is why it’s so stable and does not have those kinds of issues
@@SpaceRexWill oh. That sounds good. Will tell my admin at work. Thank you and have a good one Will ;)
You too! Yeah BTRFS is a bit of a wild file system and would not recommend people run it on their own builds, but since synology controls the full setup they have it pretty much perfect. their setup pretty much works perfectly and because of the healing aspect has wayyyy better data security then ext4
Hi I just find the time to work again on my DS216j with two bays. I have it setup as 1 Volume with ext4. Wondering if I can change to btrf and best way how. Reason for the change is I use the NAS as main backup for my Laptops (3) and want to have easy recovery. I do plan to sore pictures from Google Cloud here as well as backup. Do I need to perform a full factory reset? Note, I do not have yet a lot of data on the NAS that is worth to keep. Thanks.
Hello,
At 1:50 you refer that you need RAD1/SHR in order to perform data scrubbing.
I have a test configuration of SHR-1, two discs, and it says I cannot do data scrubbing.
It says something like nota vailable to EXT4 or less than 3 drives.
Running DSM 7.1.1-42962 Update 3
I don't mind of not automatically self healing as I have cold backup of the NAS.
I would be happy with check summing and alert for a corrupt file.
But it doesn't seem to allow scrubbing, so how can it be done with RAID1/SHR1 as you say?
Thank you.
Ah yes! So with EXT4 you need 3 drives due to the RAID calculations having a checksum. RAID1 is just a mirror so no checksum
@@SpaceRexWill But with BTRFS it allowed me with just two drives. I assume because as BTRFS allows for checksums, we don't need 3 drives for detecting and correcting errors, right? Am I thinking correctly? With a DS220+ with two drives in SHR1 (Equivalent to RADI1) and BTRFS, I can protect against bit rot and other types of data corruption. Not only detect but also "heal", right? I really need to be sure as I am implementing this from scratch and will be my setup for the next 5-10 years. Thank you very much for your help, here in particular and your channel in general :)
Great video - but a question. I recently set purchased and set up a DS220j and just 10 days later the DS220+ went on sale for $60 OFF so I pulled the trigger. I know I can migrate my data fairly easily, but what about the file system? I'd like to take advantage of the BTFRS file system. Can I do this in the migration, or will I have to start over with my set up?
I have a warning on my Synology DS1520+ 5-Bay. All it says is "File system: Btrfs." The storage pool is 84% full. What does this mean? Thanks
means your are using 84 percent of your space
Hi, thank for these helpful videos.
Can you make a tutorial to migrate from ext4 to btrfs on a 2 bay DS224+ system. The disks were previously used on an older synology NAS. I assume i will need to wipe a disk? Thanks
Thanks men, but the video is coming 1 month to late for me... Is there a easy way to change the format from ext4 to btrfs in my raid system?
unfortunately your best bet is to backup the files to an external hard drive then rebuild the pool (make sure you have at least 2 copies of any important files)
@@SpaceRexWill I just had the same question, thanks for the answer, I know it was 9 months ago, but as you can see I had the same question. Would you say this would be a good test for hyper backup and restore?
Was thinking of using BTRFS on my DS220+ but I'm worried about the slower speeds. I already have a bit of lag when streaming videos from it and I'm using EXT4. If I was using BTRFS wouldn't that make it even slower?
In my testing I have not been able to ever find a difference in speed
I am soon to purchase a DS1520+ in which I plan to have a BTRFS volume consisting of three 6TB drives for data (and a fourth bay for expansion), and an SSD (512GB?) for DSM and other software. The software drive doesn't need any redundancy features because if something happens to the software, I'll just reinstall from up-to-date sources. I'm thinking that EXT4 might be the better choice for formatting the SSD, since it will have slightly better performance. What do you recommend?
Depends what you are doing. Many of Synology's best apps require BTRFS such as active backup / VM manager
Running/Storing VM drive files on BTRFS is painful and awful, in both unraid and truenas i had major problems, a switch to EXT4 and problems gone. Sadly Synology disallows EXT4 with its Virtual Manager software.
Great video but...
I just bought myself a new DS that supports btfrs (DS220+). Until now I have been using old DS214play without this feature. I am about to migrate (the new maching is just being shipped).
My question is: how can I move to btfrs on my new machine without having to install the server from scratch?
I am using 2 disk RAID 1.
Thanks in advanced for you help.
You unfortunately do have to reinstall everything from scratch more or less. I think you can restore from a hyperbackup to the new NAS
Hey, will you make video on FreeNAS (ZFS) vs Synology DSM ( preferably upcoming version 7 with BTRFGS)
Thanks.
For sure. Will need to get more familiar with ZFS first but I definitely will
@@SpaceRexWill Thank you for considering the topic. :-)
I started with one volume on my DS1815+, and I used EXT4. I have seen that I should have used BTRFS and have created a 2nd volume with BTRFS, how can I convert my 1st volume from EXT4 to BTRFS?
Short of copying the files somewhere else (and making backups additional to this) and rebuilding the volume I am really not sure
@@SpaceRexWill ok thanks I really don't know what I am going to do since everything still works okay, it would just be good to have everything on BTRFS.
I mean it’s not the end of the world. File corruption is fairly rare but really hard to quantify.
Thanks!
You bet!
Great video 👍
Thanks! Glad it was helpful!
All in all good, but man do I need to 2x your videos...
he should snore some coke just before making these videos
Fucking awesome Willy
Quite honestly, BTRFS is a nice file system, but you'll get a performance hit when using virtual machines. In fact, very bad performance due so many checksums taxing the hard drives. Not to mention the CPU and memory in Synology hardware is not the latest and greatest. It's just a fancy network storage drive that doesn't need much processing power. To really run virtual machines, you'll need a fully dedicated Type 1 Hypervisor (bare metal) , not some mickey mouse software running on top Synology OS. 😂😂😂
Btrfs sucks a$$. False sense of security. You screw up or something happens you can kiss your data good bye. Ext4 at least you have a much better chance to recover data.
Then your Backup concept is poorly implemented.
Explain why thanks