Re: [PATCH v2] ext4: set csum seed in tmp inode while migrating to extents

From: Pavel Machek
Date: Tue Dec 28 2021 - 17:40:22 EST


Hi!

> > So the question is, is it worth it to continue supporting the migrate
> > feature, or should we just delete all of the migration code, and risk
> > users complaining that we've broken their use case? The chances of
> > that happening is admittedly low, and Linus's rule that "it's only
> > breaking userspace if a user complains" means we might very well get
> > away with it. :-)
>
> That's a very good summary Ted, thanks.
>
> Our rationale behind not supporting the migration was always the fact
> that we felt that backup was absolutely necessary before operation like
> this. When you already have up-to-date backup available you might as
> well create a fresh ext4 file system with all the advantages it brings
> and recover data from said backup. I think this is still a very
> reasonable approach.

Umm. Not really?

First... full backup/restore will take a _long_ time.

Second... if you do online migration, you have filesystem you are
quite unlikely to corrupt, and backup you are unlikely to use. If you
do backup/restore, you have to be _way_ more careful that backup media
is reliable etc.

Best regards,
Pavel
--
http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek

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