full image - Repost: Someone figure out my filesystems for me! (from Reddit.com, Someone figure out my filesystems for me!)
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Edit: My title doesn't really fit anymore, but I didn't realize that until after posting, sorry.I'm giving myself a headache over an intended computer upgrade with some data-hoard-like usecases (bulletproof backup and archival), so I'm hoping someone who's already done this can just tell me "do this and everything will work". I use Ubuntu Linux as my primary operating system and have no intention to use any other operating systems (especially not Windows!), so I'm hoping for an Ubuntu-compatible Linux-centric solution.My intended new computer build will have five drives in it:1x WD Black SN770 500GB drive. This is going to be the boot drive, and will take the brunt of the work I do (VMs, software compilation, legal torrent seeding, etc.). It will probably be frequently backed up.1x ADATA SU750 SATA SSD. I already own this SSD, it was from an older computer restoration job. It still has plenty of life on it. Any VMs that can stand to run on slower storage will probably be plopped here, along with non-critical archived data. I'll probably also throw a Monero blockchain on this drive.2x Seagate Barracuda Compute 4TB SATA HDDs. Yes, these are SMR drives, I think this is OK but I may be wrong. They will hold my regular backup of my primary drive, but they will also hold mission-critical, "if I lose this it will be a disaster" data rescued from now dead or very close to dead computers. I absolutely cannot afford to lose the data placed on these drives. I intend to RAID1 them together somehow so that if one goes down the data is preserved and is still accessible.1x WD EasyStore 12TB USB HDD. I already own this HDD. It will be used to back up the RAID1 Seagate array. This way, if both of the drives go up in flames (drive/controller/RAM failure, ransomeware, etc., etc.), the data is still preserved.I think this is a solid solution (true 3-2-1 backup for the main drive, near 3-2-1 backup for the critical archived data). The thing I'm having a hard time figuring out is the file systems to use on each drive. Given the critical nature of the data, silent data corruption is a risk here.My current idea is:WD Black: XFS (high performance, possibly self-healing? I think I've read that XFS is self-healing but I can't find official proof of this.) Edit 2: This drive will have full-disk encryption via LUKS enabled. This is going to be my main computer, and I have to deal with sensitive data, so the use of LUKS is non-negotiable.ADATA: XFS (I could go ext4 here since I don't care if this drive blows up, but why not go with XFS's better performance?)Seagate RAID1: ZFS (Self-healing, supports software RAID, high-performance, and RAM isn't a concern since the array won't be in active use most of the time anyway, only problem I can see here is that ZFS + SMR = pain?)WD EasyStore: ??? (I'd really like a self-healing FS on this, but since this drive is "on it's own", I'm not sure if ZFS is the best option. Btrfs, maybe?)However, since this is my first time doing this (shoot, I'm not even doing it yet, but I intend to), and I need to get it right the first time, I don't want to hinge everything on one supposedly rock-solid FS only to discover that it's a data shredder. Nor do I want to mess up with my file system configuration.Basically, if both RAID1 drives blow up or the data on them becomes hopelessly scrambled, and the 12TB drive has undergone silent data corruption as a result of the passage of time or an uncaught data error, I want to still be able to access everything (or at least have the absolute highest chances of accessing everything).So, the questions I have are:Is XFS self-healing, or isn't it? If not, how dangerous is it if my primary boot drive becomes corrupted during use? Could bit rot possibly cause the critical RAID1 array to become damaged, for instance, in the event that the ZFS driver was corrupted? (I just realized Secure Boot will probably save me from a damaged driver so this might not be such a concern after all.)Is my choice of filesystems wise?What would be the "best practices" for the creation of the ZFS RAID1 array (if I should use ZFS at all), to maximize the chances of data survival in the event of silent data corruption and drive failure?What FS should I use on the EasyStore drive? Which one will provide the highest chances of data survival in the event of silent data corruption?In the event everything goes as poorly as possible (RAID1 blows up, filesystem on EasyStore somehow is too corrupted to perfectly restore from), what are the measures I can take to extract as much of the data as possible from the drives?I do not want to go way over budget, so if I can't use the SMR drives, I have to replace them with either smaller drives or fewer drives. What's the best solution for coping with SMR? (If the answer is "don't", then I'll probably go with a pair of 2 TB PMR drives instead and hope that I can successfully compress down the important data enough to fit comfortably and leave me backup room.)I'm probably way overthinking this, but overthinking is better than underthinking. Thanks in advance for your help!
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