Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Question from a filesystem n00b: what is the advantage of Bcachefs relative to standard filesystems like Ext4?


I’m currently using a few different filesystems for different use-cases, and looking forward to bcachefs because (as I understand it) it covers some use-cases that I’ve been dreaming of for ages and not yet found any solution for:

- raid5/6 with odd-sized disks (btrfs does raid1 with odd-sized disks, mdadm & zfs do raid5/6 with equally-sized disks) - great for a homelab server that I upgrade ship-of-theseus style rather than the enterprise “buy a whole new server with whole new larger disks in one go”

- SSD as a cache integrated with HDD RAID (right now I’m using bcache + mdadm + ext4 for this usecase; having the filesystem coordinate all three of those layers feels more elegant and efficient)

- Different settings for different directories in the same filesystem (my super-important documents get RAID1 across 4 drives, my blu-ray rips that I can just re-rip if I lose them get RAID0, everything else gets RAID5)


It's got about the same features as btrfs, and other new-gen filesystems like ZFS, APFS and ReFS, such as:

- Copy-on-write

- RAID 0/1/5/6 equivalents

- Subvolumes

- Snapshots

- Transparent compression

- Reflinks

- Metadata and data checksuming

- Replication

- Bitrot protection (when used with RAID and checksuming)

And it's supposed to be more though through and well designed than btrfs.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2026 batch! Applications are open till July 27.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: