# Btrfs 105 Hacker News commenters recommended Btrfs and 90 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 9 years (15 owners). **Verdict:** A copy-on-write Linux filesystem built into the mainline kernel, recommended for instant snapshots, rollbacks and checksums; critics warn about RAID5/6, low free space and corruption stories. ## Why people recommend it - Snapshots, rollback and send/receive backups (9 comments): "I can't count the amount of times i have wiped or edited something by mistake and then restored it within seconds with it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48367184)) "I chose to use Limine and btrfs so now if it gets borked by a bad package install/uninstall I can roll back pretty easily." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46458196)) "You could use LVM or btrfs snapshots (at the filesystem level) if you're ok restarting your database between runs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46365275)) - Instant copy-on-write cloning (5 comments): "like what has been readily available on Linux since like 2010 with btrfs and other Copy on Write filesystems" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47507776)) "The entire "cloud" layer is Firecracker + Btrfs reflinks for instant copy-on-write cloning." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46840330)) "the resident Linux guru had set up "instant" staging environment databases with btrfs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46366002)) - In the mainline kernel everywhere (4 comments): "I still use Btrfs because I know it is guaranteed to always be present on any Linux without any effort on my part." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49769824)) "I still use Btrfs because I know it is guaranteed to always be present on any Linux without any effort on my part" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49769805)) "if one wants to stick with the official kernel without out-of-tree modules, btrfs is the only choice" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47658359)) - Years of trouble-free use (4 comments): "I haven't had troubles with the laptop FS in like fifteen years, and have never had troubles with the desktop or multipurpose box." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47663524)) "Btrfs has gone a long way since then, and is even the standard filesystem for Synology NAS boxes." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46071351)) "I've run BTRFS on my server (and external drive backups) for over 10 years without issues." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46480028)) ## What people warn about - Ongoing corruption and data-loss stories (5 comments): "An FS that will not eat (all) your data upon a hard powercycle only at the cost of 14 custom C tools is a hard pass from me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47657334)) "BTRFS appears to be the exception, as the stories about corruption events do not seem to diminish in time." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47661613)) "I've never had a BTRFS fs that didn't spontaneously combust before it would have been decommissioned." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46076430)) - RAID5/6 is risky (3 comments): "as soon as you want to do RAID1+0 or RAID5/6 you’re entering dangerous territory with BTRFS" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47659682)) "Changing the metadata profile to at least raid1 is a good idea, especially for anyone, against recommendations, using raid5 or raid6 for a btrfs array" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47658889)) "They also fucked up their parity RAID repair so that the next disk failure on a different disk will destroy the data" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49720886)) - Trouble when free space runs low (3 comments): "it took me longer to run out of space, but I of course ended up running out of space" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50139480)) "The disk full scenario is greatly improved. Still buggy, but it is recoverable." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49385197)) "It still has an issue with getting stuck in a bad state if you let the free space drop too low" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49723954)) - Degraded mode and failed mirrors (3 comments): "you sure need to be educated on BTRFS to use it in fail scenarios like degraded mode" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47308745)) "it isn't going to let you know when you have a mirror fail until you try to boot it and it won't come up" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50182630)) "Would be cool if it was finally production ready, and actually reliable on degraded hardware." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49495243)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [ZFS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zfs.md): 289 recommend - [FUSE](https://hackerapproved.com/p/fuse.md): 18 recommend - [sshfs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/sshfs.md): 17 recommend - [tmpfs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tmpfs.md): 5 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Btrfs", https://hackerapproved.com/p/btrfs/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).