I am setting up a Linux server (probably will be NixOS) where my VM disk files will be stored on top of an NTFS partition. (Yes I know NTFS sucks but it has to be this way.)

I am asking which guest filesystem will have the best performance for a very mixed workload. If I had access to the extra features of BTRFS or ZFS I would use them but I have no idea how CoW interacts with NTFS; that is why I am asking here.

Also I would like some NTFS performance tuning pointers.

  • Possibly linuxEnglish
    1•4 months ago

    I don’t understand. Why would you store VM disks on NTFS? This isn’t a viable solution and you need to rethink your design. Also for guest filesystems I would go with ext4 as it has lower overhead while still being reasonably modern.

    • PyrosisEnglish
      1•4 months ago

      Within guests these days I just use XFS, UFS, or NTFS depending on the os. The hypervisor can have zfs or ceph.

        • PyrosisEnglish
          1•4 months ago

          It seems that way but it performs better than zfs on top of zfs. The only os I ran into that with was opnsense when I was playing with a virtualized firewall.

          • Possibly linuxEnglish
            1•4 months ago

            Don’t do ZFS on ZFS. It will destroy performance.

            I personally go for EXT4 as is solid and light weight. It is also somewhat resistant to power loss

            • PyrosisEnglish
              1•4 months ago

              That’s what I said. Cow on top of cow is bad. Pretty sure ext4 isn’t on option on opnsense. UFS or zfs. Which is the only reason I mentioned it at all when presented with that choice.