On 08/01/18 19:34, Austin S. Hemmelgarn wrote:
A: While not strictly necessary, running regular filtered balances (for example `btrfs balance start -dusage=50 -dlimit=2 -musage=50 -mlimit=4`, see `man btrfs-balance` for more info on what the options mean) can help keep a volume healthy by mitigating the things that typically cause ENOSPC errors.
The choice of words is not very fortunate IMO. In my view volume stopping being "healthy" during normal operation presumes some bugs (at least shortcomings) in the filesystem code. In this case I'd prefer to have detailed understanding of the situation before copy-pasting commands from wiki pages. Remember, most users don't run cutting-edge kernels and tools, preferring LTS distribution releases instead, so one size might not fit all.
On 08/01/18 23:29, Martin Raiber wrote:
There have been reports of (rare) corruption caused by balance (won't be detected by a scrub) here on the mailing list. So I would stay a away from btrfs balance unless it is absolutely needed (ENOSPC), and while it is run I would try not to do anything else wrt. to writes simultaneously.
This is my opinion too as a normal user, based upon reading this list and own attempts to recover from ENOSPC. I'd rather re-create filesystem from scratch, or at least make full verified backup before attempting to fix problems with balance.
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