Hi all,

A recent thread had me RTFMing f2fs, and what I found was interesting:

https://darwinsdata.com/is-f2fs-better-than-ext4/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F2FS

https://www.maketecheasier.com/timedatectl-control-system-time-date-linux/?scr=1

https://www.phoronix.com/review/clear-linux-f2fs

The Wikipedia article mentions that the chance of leaving your
filesystem in a dirty state after disorderly shutdown is higher on
f2fs unless you change the fsync_mode from "posix" to something else
(probably "strict"). Doing so reduces some of the performance
advantages of f2fs.

From what I've read, f2fs is beneficial to Nand storage only when doing
write operations. For write operations it's often faster, it reduces
unnecessary writes on individual Nand gates, and I think it handles
fstrim automatically.

I've observed two distinct usages of Nand (SSD/NVMe) drives:

1) SSD/NVMe is the only drive on the computer. Typical of laptops.

2) SSD/NVMe is root partition, with often written directories mounted
on spinning rust.


Case #1 cries out for f2fs. F2fs minimizes write activity. In today's
world, a laptop's typical 1TB to 2TB is very little space, considering
huge video files, and considering that for drive longevity you
shouldn't completely populate it. Also, if I understand right, you
don't need to remember to fstrim / frequently.

In case #2, you're doing very little writing, so f2fs doesn't gain you
anything except maybe not having to remember to run fstrim, but of
course you could automatically trim via an entry in /etc/fstab if you
drive on that side of the road.

I'll be paying more attention to f2fs from now on.

SteveT

Steve Litt

Autumn 2023 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21