From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from slmp-550-94.slc.westdc.net ([50.115.112.57]:42189 "EHLO slmp-550-94.slc.westdc.net" rhost-flags-OK-FAIL-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752073Ab3ESSWM convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Sun, 19 May 2013 14:22:12 -0400 Received: from c-67-165-243-162.hsd1.co.comcast.net ([67.165.243.162]:53046 helo=[192.168.1.126]) by slmp-550-94.slc.westdc.net with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES128-SHA:128) (Exim 4.80) (envelope-from ) id 1Ue8FH-0013cx-Vi for linux-btrfs@vger.kernel.org; Sun, 19 May 2013 12:22:12 -0600 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Mime-Version: 1.0 (Mac OS X Mail 6.3 \(1503\)) Subject: Re: Virtual Device Support From: Chris Murphy In-Reply-To: <262CC063-0DB4-45BD-A776-9FD1E8650E7C@colorremedies.com> Date: Sun, 19 May 2013 12:22:11 -0600 Message-Id: <26BABD4D-3B5E-4574-AB90-CA714F19D4A8@colorremedies.com> References: <518CFE3A.3080900@chinilu.com> <20130519171510.54897415@natsu> <262CC063-0DB4-45BD-A776-9FD1E8650E7C@colorremedies.com> To: Btrfs BTRFS Sender: linux-btrfs-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On May 19, 2013, at 12:18 PM, Chris Murphy wrote: > > It's not possible to mount regular directories with other file systems. In some ways the btrfs subvolume behaves like a folder. In other ways it acts like a device. If you stat the mount point for btrfs subvolumes, you get a unique device ID for each. Also a possible use case for btrfs subvolumes as virtual devices, if this isn't already possible or reliable, is in place of LV's for virtual machines. It's very convenient to point a VM to local LVM storage, and have it use an LV which can easily be created, located, and destroyed, and presented to the VM as a single block device. A btrfs subvolume isn't a block device of course, but if it can be pointed to in this fashion it would make it as useful in this scenario as LVs. Otherwise I have to create another btrfs file system on a qcow2 image which then resides on btrfs. So it's double btrfs which performance wise I think is an undesirable hit. Chris Murphy