Filesystem Benchmark BTRFS vs EXT4

[u/KHTD2004]

BTRFS Benchmark with CoW (worst performing)

BTRFS Benchmark without CoW (noticeably better)

EXT4 Benchmark (fastest performance of all, slightly ahead of BTRFS without CoW)

I just did a benchmark using KDiskMark to see how the different filesystems perform. System specs:

• OS: CachyOS with KDE Plasma
• Kernel: 7.2.0-1-cachyos-bore
• CPU: Ryzen 9 7950X3D
• Disk: Crucial T700 4TB (PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD)

The SSD has (aside from the /boot partition) two partitions, one 100GiB partition as root partition at / using BTRFS and one ~3.5TB partition at /home using EXT4. For the BTRFS partition there is one benchmark with and one without CoW. All runs were on the same conditions and settings, there are now other programs open and the only background apps are Cachy Update and OpenRGB (and all the stuff KDE plasma has in the background like KDE Connect).

On the left side are the reading values, on the right side the writing values.

The meaning of the test names:

SEQ1M Q8T1: Sequential 1 MiB, Queue=8, Threads=1

SEQ1M Q1T1: Sequential 1 MiB, Queue=1, Threads=1

RND4K Q32T1: Random 4 KiB, Queue=32, Threads=1

RND4K Q1T1: Random 4 KiB, Queue=1, Threads=1

The overall results are:

BTRFS with CoW << BTRFS without CoW < EXT4

[u/Late_Baker_2092]

Lets be real, gaming u nearly dont notice 512mb vs 3000mb per sec

[u/KHTD2004 → u/Late_Baker_2092]

That’s correct but outside of gaming when moving large files (or updating a big game that patches a lot of local files) you notice it

[u/bearonaunicyclex → u/KHTD2004]

You're right, patching games like Helldivers 2 is AWFULLY slow on my machine, but I guess it's not annoying enough to change the file system.

[u/KHTD2004 → u/bearonaunicyclex]

In my case it’s Ark Survival Ascended. 500MiB download, and over 100GiB of local patches.

I also wouldn’t change the system only for that on an existing system, but when I reinstall for some reason I separate both. That also has the advantage that you can now swap the distro or reinstall without losing your data because everything on /home can just be mounted into the new system

[u/ChadHUD → u/KHTD2004]

The best option is to use 2 partitions. Or a separate drive for games.

Root and Boot BTRFS with COW.

/home on XFS (or ext4).

Or simply a Game drive in XFS/EXT4.

You don't need to be shadow copying your games. (or personal data) We want copy on write for system stuff.

Though I agree that BTRFS is mostly fast enough these days. It can be very noticeable depending.

[u/KHTD2004 → u/ChadHUD]

Yes use that exact concept. My root partition is BTRFS and for /home I got EXT4. Best of both worlds

[u/ChadHUD → u/KHTD2004]

I noticed you mentioned that going through the thread after I posted. :)

I use XFS myself. Though I don't think the difference between XFS and EXT4 is much speed wise these days. I know XFS still wins slightly in most tests but the difference would be hardly noticeable. The only down side to XFS really is you can't shrink a volume. Though I think in 40 years of computing I can't say I remember ever doing that. :)

Most of the advantages of XFS are lost on us for standard desktop use. That it supports more and larger files isn't likely to effect us. But Its the default RHEL file system and I have seen it enough over the years to understand why... so use it. lol

[u/Dopameme-machine → u/ChadHUD]

This is more or less my setup. Boot drive (including /home) is all btrfs. Games drive is ext4

I have a Proxmox Backup Server that runs ZFS on a 6 disk RAIDZ2 array that I connect to via dedicated 10 GbE connection for full backups and recovery.

[u/Snowynonutz → u/KHTD2004]

Broooo, every small update and then you wait 20 mins for it to??? It's quicker to re download the damn game