Linux

If you're not intending to use complicated RAID setups, just go with btrfs. There is no reason to bother with zfs given your specs and needs.

Do not go with ext4. Unlike both btrfs and zfs, ext4 does not do data checksumming, meaning it cannot detect bit rot (and obviously cannot fix it either). You'll also be missing out on other modern features, like compression and copy-on-write and all the benefits that entails. Once you start using snapshots for incremental backups using btrfs send (or its zfs equivalent), you'll never want to go back. Recommended script: snap-sync.

Ext4 with backups

I’m assuming you don’t want to tinker with things? I’m also assuming you do not have experience with things like ZFS. So….

Unless you’re running multiple drives (or special options) zfs & btrfs aren’t going to give you much. For instance btrfs (unless it’s set to DUP) isn’t going to protect from bitrot or other data corruption. Same goes for ZFS. It will throw an error when something doesn’t match the checksum though.

Your best option is to either use ext4 or xfs for your 4tb storage. If you’re working with a lot of large files xfs has some advantages but overall you’re not going to notice that much of a difference in your uses.

For your ssd, btrfs has the advantage over ext4 and xfs. Although so does f2fs. In practical uses for what you’re describing it’s not going to make that much of a difference.

Unless you have a specific reason to use something other than ext4 then just stick with that. It’s simple and just works. Make sure you’re keeping backups eg restic, borg, rsync, duplicity, etc etc. and follow the 3,2,1 rule where possible and you’ll be fine.

If it were me setting up that system I’d mirror the drives and use btrfs. Which is pretty much what I did on my PC. But that double the costs of storage.

The only place (at home) I use ZFS is on my NAS. I have Rocky8 setup and all it does is handle storage. I use mirrored pairs on my important data and Z1 on everything else. But that’s a topic for another post

If you REALLY want some of the features of zfs or btrfs eg snapshots, I’d lean on your backup software for that but if you can use LVM to take snapshots in a similar fashion. See STRAIS for another example too. However that’s beyond the scope of this post.

A lot of these responses seem.. dated. There's a reason TruNAS and such use ZFS now.

I would recommend ZFS 100%. The copy-on-write (allowing you to recover almost anything), simple snapshots, direct disk encryption, and ability to not only check the file system, but tell you exactly which file has an issue if there is an error, make it an easy choice even if its a one-disk system.

Personally I use date times for my snapshot names, and delete old ones as time goes on. Its fabulous for backups.

btrfs and you get snapshots, the ability to send subvolumes around + compression and a ton of other stuff.

be aware that to configure a good layout in btrfs you will need to do that manually, follow the arch wiki and you will be ok.

Zfs, absolutely, because you can send the data where you need.

I disagree completely with btrfs, because if something goes wrong, that's it, recovery is not pleasant. Zfs isn't perfect, but it has recovery modes.

Alternately, ext4, it's recoverable, safe, and with journaling it's solid on power loss.

edit: Other poster was right about bitrot and checksumming, stick with zfs, xfs is good too so long as you're not running a db.

I've been running ZFS for around 12 years (on FreeBSD and Linux) and I'm not sure why anyone would ever use anything else.

It's got the age, community, and wide acceptance that makes it a proven safe & reliable option.

Zfs with zraid/mirror and increased copies

It's self healing and can't corrupt on power loss

I recommend using whatever is the "least hands-on" option for your boot drive, a.k.a your distro default (ext4 for Debian). In my admittedly incompetent experience, the most likely cause for filesystem corruption is trying to mess with things, like resizing partitions. If you use your distro installer to set up your boot drive and then don't mess with it, I think you'll be fine with whatever the default is. You should still take backups through whatever medium(s) and format(s) make sense for your use case, as random mishaps are still a thing no matter what filesystem you use.

Are you planning on dualbooting Windows for games? I use https://github.com/maharmstone/btrfs to mount a shared BTRFS drive that contains my Proton-based Steam library in case I need to run one of those games on Windows for whatever reason. I've personally experienced BTRFS corruption a few times due to the aforementioned incompetence, but I try to avoid keeping anything important on my games drive to limit the fallout when that does occur. Additionally if you're looking to keep non-game content on the storage drive (likely if you're doing 3D modeling work) this may not be as safe.

Id go with your distro default which I think is ext4 for most distros and do proper backups/data management (which might include a Nas running zfs--so you get the best of both worlds).

Depending on your data it might be small and not need a Nas necessarily. Things like code could go up on GitHub or gitlab. Games themselves can always be redownloaded etc. If your data is small enough, cloud storage isn't too pricey.

One of the best things you can do for a PC is getting a solid true sine wave battery backup that will let you weather electricity fluctuations, surges, brownouts ,and give you time to shut down properly during an outage.

It's gonna be a hard decision to make. I know that because I read about Btrfs for about a whole week before deciding to switch to it. But, I'm a happy Btrfs user now for about 8 months, and I'll be honest with you, in my opinion, if your application does not mainly involve small random writes that'll make Btrfs inevitably fragment a ton, it is most likely good for any situation. I don't know much about the other modern/advanced filesystems like ZFS or XFS to tell you anything about them though

Been using BTRFS for several years and have never once had any sort of issue. i just choose BTRFS at system setup and never think about it again. I like that when I copy a file it is INSTANT and makes my computer feel super fast, whereas EXT4 can take several minutes to copy large files. This is with similar use to what you describe. No RAID.

ext4 is the tried and true file system. I use that for reliability. Btrfs is nice with a ton of modern features, but I have had some issues in the past, but they are pretty rare.

I use ext4 for my boot drive as that’s what Linux mint defaults to.

I do not do raids and use btrfs on my other drives.

You can turn on compression on write with btrfs which may reduce the amount of data being read and written to your drive which could further reduce its lifespan.

But you shouldn’t expect the drives to last 10 years.

They might, but don’t expect it and have a backup of whatever is important. Ideally you should have a local backup and a cloud based backup or at least an offsite backup somewhere else.

BTRFS - easy, fast, reliable, snapshots, compression, usable RAID, CoW, online resizing... ZFS - hard to get into, reliable, snapshots, compression, state of the art RAID, CoW....

Everything else, particularly Ext4 should be avoided. Your life will be a lot easier once you discover snapshotting and also how more robust and reliable BTRFS and ZFS are. I got into BTRFS a few years ago in order to survive power losses as I had issues with Ext3 and Ext4 regularly with that. My experience with Ext4 disks was always: if something goes slightly wrong your data is... puff gone.