I just migrated my NixOS system from BTRFS to XFS. I've got all my services up and running and I'm already seeing improvements:
- Reduced memory consuption.
- Reduced file fragmentation; The Gossip client LMDB database went from +6,000 extents down to 2.
- Reduced CPU usage. My CPU fan actually turned off for a while :) It turned back on when I launched Gossip, LOL!
I think my laptop is much happier now.
#nix #nixos #xfs
Even as I was typing this I was thinking that it sounded too good to be true. It did address the issue with high file fragmentation, though.
The downside is that since there's no native support for snapshots I have to use `cp --reflink=always` to simulate snapshots. It works, but `cp` has to traverse through a directory tree to copy the metadata. In contrast, the BTRFS snapshot is instant and atomic. For me, it's a small price to pay.
