Just. a simple advice.
I found a little bit old laptop that has 500MB HDD.
I am thinking to add an SSD for the system at least. I do not know yet if I can keep the HDD along with the SSD.
If it can be done, what would be the best configuration BTRFS.
Sorry if this sounds a silly question but I am totally new to BTRFS.
I read something (but I am not sure if I got it right), 2 BTRFS disks can be somehow “merged” to be as one disk.
If so, can it be with SSD and HDD?
BTRFS supports multiple devices and different RAID modes so this should be possible. I don’t know much details and how to boot such a system, as I stick to a single disk.
https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Using_Btrfs_with_Multiple_Devices
I’m not sure if you are referring to a raid set up but if so it is best to use identical discs. So two ssd same size would be the way. I don’t think you want to use an SSD and a Hard drive. Doesn’t matter whether it’s btrfs or not. If the setup is a Raid set up this is normally how it’s done and again depending on the type of Raid system one is trying to implement for what purpose.
In theory you can have both an HDD and an SSD. In practice, and I found this out myself on a Dell Inspiron 5558, unless you resort to an additional external device and use one of the external ports (USB in most cases), you are unlikely to be able to have both devices; WITH an external device, the answer is yes as long as you have at least one port you can use for the device and it supports the protocol available.
An OLD device might have some other forms of serial ports in addition or instead of USB.
Not a RAID setup. What I understood was something like 300GB disk + 500GB disk gives one 800GB disk (not 300GB as in RAID)
I read somewhere somebody removed the DVD drive and put an extra disk in its place using some sort of casing.
Something I never heard or thought of.
Yes that is possible, but HDD ist pretty slow in uptime.
I would recommend using XFS or EXT4 for multiple media, Downloads, Git folder and some unimportant data in one partition (300 GB) of this HDD. Btrfs for multiple system backups in second partition (200GB) of this HDD.
I would make it just for storage of files I do not use frequently. (movies, music, old books and documents)
I would keep /home as default on the SSD where to put the files I access frequently (cherry tree notes… LibreOffice documents and spreadsheets… )
I have a “common sense” feeling… I would make all disks BTRFS.
You should know, running Btrfs is much slower than EXT4 or XFS at read speed in HDD not like SSD (Btrfs is faster than Ext4 on nvme SSD when using good CPU and simple copying, moving and reading games in the real world, but you don’t notice speed difference). I’ve already tested this benchmark myself.
I read that. But I believe BTRFS is the future, and it is a bit safer.
I started EOS (Installed EXT4 on 9 Jul. 2022, then BTRFS on 1 Aug. 2022, Snapper/BTRFS Assistant 9 Aug. 2022)
The actual real day to day use I had no problem, did not “feel” it is slower BUT I am enjoying snapshots, whether for system or /home.
This gives me a much better feeling of security.
You can do that, but you shouldn’t. It is better not to combine disks of mixed performance into a single volume for general use.
You can just have two separate filesystems, both with btrfs.
The important thing is to consider how to layout the subvolumes on the disk.
This is why I was asking. I thought I better first check with experts!
Honestly as you know I am no expert… I will just go with whatever defaults and whatever the system does to my disks. (sounds stupid I know, but my rule of thumb is to go with defaults!)
Then what you will get is that the second filesystem will have no subvolumes at all.
The defaults are made to support a single filesystem. If you want to split across multiple filesystems you really should plan it out a little.
Start by thinking about which data you want on your SSD and which data you want on your HDD.
I see. This makes sense now to me! (I still have a long long way to go)
(Let me not waste your time for now as I may end up simply using it as an external USB HDD) Just for storing old data!
As far as I understand now, if “The defaults are made to support a single filesystem.” it might require some work to add another file system, and get snapshots of this additional storage!
I will use the SSD for the frequently used data (like the research I am doing on CherryTree, or let me assume I will use something like KMyMoney). The other HDD wil have the old movies, music, pictures… just a storage for files I rarely need or use)