1BTRFS-BALANCE(8) Btrfs Manual BTRFS-BALANCE(8)
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6 btrfs-balance - balance block groups on a btrfs filesystem
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9 btrfs balance <subcommand> <args>
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12 The primary purpose of the balance feature is to spread block groups
13 across all devices so they match constraints defined by the respective
14 profiles. See mkfs.btrfs(8) section PROFILES for more details. The
15 scope of the balancing process can be further tuned by use of filters
16 that can select the block groups to process. Balance works only on a
17 mounted filesystem. Extent sharing is preserved and reflinks are not
18 broken. Files are not defragmented nor recompressed, file extents are
19 preserved but the physical location on devices will change.
20 The balance operation is cancellable by the user. The on-disk state of
22 the filesystem is always consistent so an unexpected interruption (eg.
23 system crash, reboot) does not corrupt the filesystem. The progress of
24 the balance operation is temporarily stored as an internal state and
25 will be resumed upon mount, unless the mount option skip_balance is
26 specified.
27 Warning
29 running balance without filters will take a lot of time as it
30 basically move data/metadata from the whol filesystem and needs to
31 update all block pointers.
32 The filters can be used to perform following actions:
34 • convert block group profiles (filter convert)
36 • make block group usage more compact (filter usage)
38 • perform actions only on a given device (filters devid, drange)
40 The filters can be applied to a combination of block group types (data,
42 metadata, system). Note that changing only the system type needs the
43 force option. Otherwise system gets automatically converted whenever
44 metadata profile is converted.
45 When metadata redundancy is reduced (eg. from RAID1 to single) the
47 force option is also required and it is noted in system log.
48 Note
50 the balance operation needs enough work space, ie. space that is
51 completely unused in the filesystem, otherwise this may lead to
52 ENOSPC reports. See the section ENOSPC for more details.
53
55 Note
56 The balance subcommand also exists under the btrfs filesystem
57 namespace. This still works for backward compatibility but is
58 deprecated and should not be used any more.
59 Note
61 A short syntax btrfs balance <path> works due to backward
62 compatibility but is deprecated and should not be used any more.
63 Use btrfs balance start command instead.
64
66 Balancing operations are very IO intensive and can also be quite CPU
67 intensive, impacting other ongoing filesystem operations. Typically
68 large amounts of data are copied from one location to another, with
69 corresponding metadata updates.
70 Depending upon the block group layout, it can also be seek heavy.
72 Performance on rotational devices is noticeably worse compared to SSDs
73 or fast arrays.
74
76 cancel <path>
77 cancels a running or paused balance, the command will block and
78 wait until the current blockgroup being processed completes
79 Since kernel 5.7 the response time of the cancellation is
81 significantly improved, on older kernels it might take a long time
82 until currently processed chunk is completely finished.
83 pause <path>
85 pause running balance operation, this will store the state of the
86 balance progress and used filters to the filesystem
87 resume <path>
89 resume interrupted balance, the balance status must be stored on
90 the filesystem from previous run, eg. after it was paused or
91 forcibly interrupted and mounted again with skip_balance
92 start [options] <path>
94 start the balance operation according to the specified filters,
95 without any filters the data and metadata from the whole filesystem
96 are moved. The process runs in the foreground.
97 Note
99 the balance command without filters will basically move
100 everything in the filesystem to a new physical location on
101 devices (ie. it does not affect the logical properties of file
102 extents like offsets within files and extent sharing). The run
103 time is potentially very long, depending on the filesystem
104 size. To prevent starting a full balance by accident, the user
105 is warned and has a few seconds to cancel the operation before
106 it starts. The warning and delay can be skipped with
107 --full-balance option.
108 Please note that the filters must be written together with the -d,
109 -m and -s options, because they’re optional and bare -d and -m also
110 work and mean no filters.
111 Note
113 when the target profile for conversion filter is raid5 or
114 raid6, there’s a safety timeout of 10 seconds to warn users
115 about the status of the feature
116 Options
117 -d[<filters>]
119 act on data block groups, see FILTERS section for details about
120 filters
121 -m[<filters>]
123 act on metadata chunks, see FILTERS section for details about
124 filters
125 -s[<filters>]
127 act on system chunks (requires -f), see FILTERS section for
128 details about filters.
129 -f
131 force a reduction of metadata integrity, eg. when going from
132 raid1 to single, or skip safety timeout when the target
133 conversion profile is raid5 or raid6
134 --background|--bg
136 run the balance operation asynchronously in the background,
137 uses fork(2) to start the process that calls the kernel ioctl
138 --enqueue
140 wait if there’s another exclusive operation running, otherwise
141 continue
142 -v
144 (deprecated) alias for global -v option
145 status [-v] <path>
147 Show status of running or paused balance.
148 Options
150 -v
152 (deprecated) alias for global -v option
153
155 From kernel 3.3 onwards, btrfs balance can limit its action to a subset
156 of the whole filesystem, and can be used to change the replication
157 configuration (e.g. moving data from single to RAID1). This
158 functionality is accessed through the -d, -m or -s options to btrfs
159 balance start, which filter on data, metadata and system blocks
160 respectively.
161 A filter has the following structure: type[=params][,type=...]
163 The available types are:
165 profiles=<profiles>
167 Balances only block groups with the given profiles. Parameters are
168 a list of profile names separated by "|" (pipe).
169 usage=<percent>, usage=<range>
171 Balances only block groups with usage under the given percentage.
172 The value of 0 is allowed and will clean up completely unused block
173 groups, this should not require any new work space allocated. You
174 may want to use usage=0 in case balance is returning ENOSPC and
175 your filesystem is not too full.
176 The argument may be a single value or a range. The single value N
178 means at most N percent used, equivalent to ..N range syntax.
179 Kernels prior to 4.4 accept only the single value format. The
180 minimum range boundary is inclusive, maximum is exclusive.
181 devid=<id>
183 Balances only block groups which have at least one chunk on the
184 given device. To list devices with ids use btrfs filesystem show.
185 drange=<range>
187 Balance only block groups which overlap with the given byte range
188 on any device. Use in conjunction with devid to filter on a
189 specific device. The parameter is a range specified as start..end.
190 vrange=<range>
192 Balance only block groups which overlap with the given byte range
193 in the filesystem’s internal virtual address space. This is the
194 address space that most reports from btrfs in the kernel log use.
195 The parameter is a range specified as start..end.
196 convert=<profile>
198 Convert each selected block group to the given profile name
199 identified by parameters.
200 Note
202 starting with kernel 4.5, the data chunks can be converted
203 to/from the DUP profile on a single device.
204 Note
206 starting with kernel 4.6, all profiles can be converted to/from
207 DUP on multi-device filesystems.
208 limit=<number>, limit=<range>
210 Process only given number of chunks, after all filters are applied.
211 This can be used to specifically target a chunk in connection with
212 other filters (drange, vrange) or just simply limit the amount of
213 work done by a single balance run.
214 The argument may be a single value or a range. The single value N
216 means at most N chunks, equivalent to ..N range syntax. Kernels
217 prior to 4.4 accept only the single value format. The range minimum
218 and maximum are inclusive.
219 stripes=<range>
221 Balance only block groups which have the given number of stripes.
222 The parameter is a range specified as start..end. Makes sense for
223 block group profiles that utilize striping, ie. RAID0/10/5/6. The
224 range minimum and maximum are inclusive.
225 soft
227 Takes no parameters. Only has meaning when converting between
228 profiles. When doing convert from one profile to another and soft
229 mode is on, chunks that already have the target profile are left
230 untouched. This is useful e.g. when half of the filesystem was
231 converted earlier but got cancelled.
232 The soft mode switch is (like every other filter) per-type. For
234 example, this means that we can convert metadata chunks the "hard"
235 way while converting data chunks selectively with soft switch.
236 Profile names, used in profiles and convert are one of: raid0, raid1,
238 raid1c3, raid1c4, raid10, raid5, raid6, dup, single. The mixed
239 data/metadata profiles can be converted in the same way, but it’s
240 conversion between mixed and non-mixed is not implemented. For the
241 constraints of the profiles please refer to mkfs.btrfs(8), section
242 PROFILES.
243
245 The way balance operates, it usually needs to temporarily create a new
246 block group and move the old data there, before the old block group can
247 be removed. For that it needs the work space, otherwise it fails for
248 ENOSPC reasons. This is not the same ENOSPC as if the free space is
249 exhausted. This refers to the space on the level of block groups, which
250 are bigger parts of the filesystem that contain many file extents.
251 The free work space can be calculated from the output of the btrfs
253 filesystem show command:
254 Label: 'BTRFS' uuid: 8a9d72cd-ead3-469d-b371-9c7203276265
256 Total devices 2 FS bytes used 77.03GiB
257 devid 1 size 53.90GiB used 51.90GiB path /dev/sdc2
258 devid 2 size 53.90GiB used 51.90GiB path /dev/sde1
259 size - used = free work space 53.90GiB - 51.90GiB = 2.00GiB
261 An example of a filter that does not require workspace is usage=0. This
263 will scan through all unused block groups of a given type and will
264 reclaim the space. After that it might be possible to run other
265 filters.
266 CONVERSIONS ON MULTIPLE DEVICES
268 Conversion to profiles based on striping (RAID0, RAID5/6) require the
270 work space on each device. An interrupted balance may leave partially
271 filled block groups that consume the work space.
272
274 A more comprehensive example when going from one to multiple devices,
275 and back, can be found in section TYPICAL USECASES of btrfs-device(8).
276 MAKING BLOCK GROUP LAYOUT MORE COMPACT
278 The layout of block groups is not normally visible; most tools report
279 only summarized numbers of free or used space, but there are still some
280 hints provided.
281 Let’s use the following real life example and start with the output:
283 $ btrfs filesystem df /path
285 Data, single: total=75.81GiB, used=64.44GiB
286 System, RAID1: total=32.00MiB, used=20.00KiB
287 Metadata, RAID1: total=15.87GiB, used=8.84GiB
288 GlobalReserve, single: total=512.00MiB, used=0.00B
289 Roughly calculating for data, 75G - 64G = 11G, the used/total ratio is
291 about 85%. How can we can interpret that:
292 • chunks are filled by 85% on average, ie. the usage filter with
294 anything smaller than 85 will likely not affect anything
295 • in a more realistic scenario, the space is distributed unevenly, we
297 can assume there are completely used chunks and the remaining are
298 partially filled
299 Compacting the layout could be used on both. In the former case it
301 would spread data of a given chunk to the others and removing it. Here
302 we can estimate that roughly 850 MiB of data have to be moved (85% of a
303 1 GiB chunk).
304 In the latter case, targeting the partially used chunks will have to
306 move less data and thus will be faster. A typical filter command would
307 look like:
308 # btrfs balance start -dusage=50 /path
310 Done, had to relocate 2 out of 97 chunks
311 $ btrfs filesystem df /path
313 Data, single: total=74.03GiB, used=64.43GiB
314 System, RAID1: total=32.00MiB, used=20.00KiB
315 Metadata, RAID1: total=15.87GiB, used=8.84GiB
316 GlobalReserve, single: total=512.00MiB, used=0.00B
317 As you can see, the total amount of data is decreased by just 1 GiB,
319 which is an expected result. Let’s see what will happen when we
320 increase the estimated usage filter.
321 # btrfs balance start -dusage=85 /path
323 Done, had to relocate 13 out of 95 chunks
324 $ btrfs filesystem df /path
326 Data, single: total=68.03GiB, used=64.43GiB
327 System, RAID1: total=32.00MiB, used=20.00KiB
328 Metadata, RAID1: total=15.87GiB, used=8.85GiB
329 GlobalReserve, single: total=512.00MiB, used=0.00B
330 Now the used/total ratio is about 94% and we moved about 74G - 68G = 6G
332 of data to the remaining blockgroups, ie. the 6GiB are now free of
333 filesystem structures, and can be reused for new data or metadata block
334 groups.
335 We can do a similar exercise with the metadata block groups, but this
337 should not typically be necessary, unless the used/total ratio is
338 really off. Here the ratio is roughly 50% but the difference as an
339 absolute number is "a few gigabytes", which can be considered normal
340 for a workload with snapshots or reflinks updated frequently.
341 # btrfs balance start -musage=50 /path
343 Done, had to relocate 4 out of 89 chunks
344 $ btrfs filesystem df /path
346 Data, single: total=68.03GiB, used=64.43GiB
347 System, RAID1: total=32.00MiB, used=20.00KiB
348 Metadata, RAID1: total=14.87GiB, used=8.85GiB
349 GlobalReserve, single: total=512.00MiB, used=0.00B
350 Just 1 GiB decrease, which possibly means there are block groups with
352 good utilization. Making the metadata layout more compact would in turn
353 require updating more metadata structures, ie. lots of IO. As running
354 out of metadata space is a more severe problem, it’s not necessary to
355 keep the utilization ratio too high. For the purpose of this example,
356 let’s see the effects of further compaction:
357 # btrfs balance start -musage=70 /path
359 Done, had to relocate 13 out of 88 chunks
360 $ btrfs filesystem df .
362 Data, single: total=68.03GiB, used=64.43GiB
363 System, RAID1: total=32.00MiB, used=20.00KiB
364 Metadata, RAID1: total=11.97GiB, used=8.83GiB
365 GlobalReserve, single: total=512.00MiB, used=0.00B
366 GETTING RID OF COMPLETELY UNUSED BLOCK GROUPS
368 Normally the balance operation needs a work space, to temporarily move
369 the data before the old block groups gets removed. If there’s no work
370 space, it ends with no space left.
371 There’s a special case when the block groups are completely unused,
373 possibly left after removing lots of files or deleting snapshots.
374 Removing empty block groups is automatic since 3.18. The same can be
375 achieved manually with a notable exception that this operation does not
376 require the work space. Thus it can be used to reclaim unused block
377 groups to make it available.
378 # btrfs balance start -dusage=0 /path
380 This should lead to decrease in the total numbers in the btrfs
382 filesystem df output.
383
385 Unless indicated otherwise below, all btrfs balance subcommands return
386 a zero exit status if they succeed, and non zero in case of failure.
387 The pause, cancel, and resume subcommands exit with a status of 2 if
389 they fail because a balance operation was not running.
390 The status subcommand exits with a status of 0 if a balance operation
392 is not running, 1 if the command-line usage is incorrect or a balance
393 operation is still running, and 2 on other errors.
394
396 btrfs is part of btrfs-progs. Please refer to the btrfs wiki
397 http://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org for further details.
398
400 mkfs.btrfs(8), btrfs-device(8)
401Btrfs v5.12.1 05/13/2021 BTRFS-BALANCE(8)