Technical Case Study: Recovery of a Severely Corrupted 12 TB Btrfs Multi-Device Storage Pool
By
salt4034
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Summary
A detailed technical case study documenting the recovery of a severely corrupted 12 TB Btrfs multi-device storage pool after a hard power cycle. The author describes how the pool's extent tree and free space tree were left in an unrecoverable state by native repair tools, with btrfs check --repair entering an infinite loop of 46,000+ commits without progress. The write-up aims to provide constructive feedback to btrfs-progs development rather than file a bug report.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledThis is not a bug report. It is a case study write up of a recovery effort on a severely corrupted 12 TB multi-device pool, shared here in case any of the observations are useful to btrfs-progs development.
A hard power cycle on a 3 device pool (data single, metadata DUP, DM-SMR disks) left the extent tree and free space tree in a state that no native repair path could resolve.
A subsequent btrfs check --repair run entered an infinite loop of 46,000+ commits with zero net progress.
The goal is constructive, not a complaint.
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