How to turn off btrfs-endio-write/clean

[epp]

BTRFS seems to be the default fs for openSUSE when installing. Please note I previously tried installing Slowroll (to a solid state drive) selecting ext4 and the first boot after installation went to a black screen, no GRUB, but it successfully installed/runs when btrfs was chosen as the fs.

Currently, Tumbleweed is installed to an HDD. When btrfs-endio-write is running, I’m sure because of the HDD, it slows down the entire system, not to a crawl, but it’s noticeable.

In an attempt to prevent this from running - and I have no idea why BTRFS is designed like this, I removed the btrfsmaintenance package yesterday, which clearly, did not stop this.

Snapshots were not enabled when this was installed, so it shouldn’t be saving them.

As this would not be an issue with openSUSE installed to a solid state drive, I would like to prevent btrfs-endio-write/clean/whatever from running on this HDD, so that the system does not slow down when I’m trying to use it. It does this multiple times a day and it’s now reached the point of being an annoyance. When it runs, it generally takes anywhere from 10 minutes to 1/2 hour to complete.

My questions are:

• Is it absolutely necessary for this to be running?
• Can it be turned off by removing any additional BTRFS-related packages?

Thank you in advance.

[mhurron]

@epp

• Is it absolutely necessary for this to be running?
• Can it be turned off by removing any additional BTRFS-related packages?

Yes, that’s why it is running. No, you have no control over it beyond not using btrfs. All removing those packages will do is make it impossible for you to manage your storage.

Yes, it’s because you’re using a HDD, assuming you actually mean spinning disk. btrfs was designed to be run on a SSD.

[pavinjoseph]

Try adding noatime,compress=zstd these options to the btrfs mounts in /etc/fstab and reboot.

It should help, but if you’re still running into performance issues consider purchasing a small, inexpensive SATA SSD and using that as the boot drive with the HDD for /home.

[epp]

Thank you for the replies. I will keep all of this in mind. The HDD (consumer-grade Western Digital’s WD Blue) is currently 14 years old and it’s still running. I’m quite surprised.