Hi, I've been using btrfs for my root partition for about a month on archlinux and recently Ive started using the i3 window manager and starting X manually and I now boot to run level 3 (multi-user.target for systemd) and Ive noticed that booting archlinux on a btrfs root, there is a lot off hdd chatter after the login prompts are displayed, which doesnt happen with ext4 on root, so I have done some testing and comparisons.
I have stripped down two arch installs, one with btrfs root and one with ext4, (same laptop, same hdd) I removed all packages except for the base group. On the btrfs root, there is about +- 15 seconds of hdd chatter and it takes a long time to log in from the prompts, with the ext4 root, the computer is silent after the prompts pop up and login is almost instant. The prompts of the two installs pop up at more or less the same time (+- 3 seconds) but the login on the btrfs root takes muuch longer than the ext4. Ive also noted that this excessive hdd chatter does not occur immediately after a fresh format with arch on btrfs root. Ive made some deductions/assumptions: This only seems to occur with btrfs roots. This only happens after some number of reboots OR after the partition fills up a little bit. Im pretty sure of ruled out everything except for the filesystem. I have just done two clean installs to more thoroughly compare ext4 and btrfs roots. So far no excessive hdd chatter from btrfs. I have also seen what I have described on two other computers (different hardware entirely) where there is lots of hdd chatter from btrfs root, and nothing from ext4. Here are two threads: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1117932 https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1301684 Any ideas? Thanks, -- Jason Russell -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-btrfs" in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
