http://www.osnews.com/story/16796/ZFS_on_Mac_OS_X_10_5_a_Closer_Look Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:08:53 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread?195557 http://osnews.com/thread?195557 ZFS seems like a pretty cool buzzword-filled file system, and everyone seems excited that Mac OS X Leopard will include support for it. But what are the practical benefits of this file system?

The main reason I ask is I wonder if it should be ported to Haiku, or if other file systems would be more useful first.

Any information or opinions on this would be appreciated. Fri, 22 Dec 2006 22:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (leavengood) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195560 http://osnews.com/thread?195560 Ever heard of this wonderful site called Wikipedia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zfs Fri, 22 Dec 2006 22:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pxa270) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195563 http://osnews.com/thread?195563 "Ever heard of this wonderful site called Wikipedia?"

Not very wonderful, but usually useful. Fri, 22 Dec 2006 22:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (JohnOne) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195564 http://osnews.com/thread?195564 http://opensolaris.org/os/community/zfs/ Fri, 22 Dec 2006 22:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (milek) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195569 http://osnews.com/thread?195569 Well, I'm using in at work, under Solaris. And I must say it's amazing. I'm really happy that ZFS is gaining momentum in open (Solaris, FreeBSD) and closed (Darwin) systems. It's really nice piece of clever engineering and pretty solid rethinking of how storage is managed. Other filesystem still work with 30 year old assumptions. Fri, 22 Dec 2006 23:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (zdzichu) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195573 http://osnews.com/thread?195573 Yet another link. Pretty inspiring stuff.
http://mtrr.org/blog/?p=83 Fri, 22 Dec 2006 23:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (korpenkraxar) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195589 http://osnews.com/thread?195589 I *REALLY* hope Apples support for ZFS is good. This FS is a wet dream It looked/sounded sweet when it first came out but I couldn't really mess with it without runing Solaris, which I haven't much desire to do at the moment. I will definitely be using it in 10.5 when it comes out!Browser: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 95; PalmSource; Blazer 3.0) 16;160x160 Sat, 23 Dec 2006 01:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (helf) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195590 http://osnews.com/thread?195590 "Yet another link. Pretty inspiring stuff.
http://mtrr.org/blog/?p=83"

Now that is what I was looking for. Thank you very much.

I already checked Wikipedia and found its technical high-level description lacking in practical information. Hence my question. The above link is great though. Sat, 23 Dec 2006 02:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (leavengood) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195600 http://osnews.com/thread?195600 Hi all,

Anyone knows if the ZFS implementation in MAC OS X is tracking the latest freebsd efforts in porting ZFS or if apple is doing it on their own?

Cheers Sat, 23 Dec 2006 03:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (nullpt) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195604 http://osnews.com/thread?195604 most hype about max OS X is how it allows a user to be ignorant of his/her system without being vulnerable to typical "diseases" that infects other ignorant users from another popular OS .. why would this typical mac user be exited about a file system? ..would there be this kind of hype if it was ported/included in linux? why/why not? i would expect this kind of this will excite most linux users above others.

how many articles have we seen about ZFS here ..digg.com is worse ..in any given day there will be at least 10+ news/blogs about about how "cool" this file system.

Its getting boring .. Sat, 23 Dec 2006 04:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mtzmtulivu) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195611 http://osnews.com/thread?195611 why would this typical mac user be exited about a file system?

The typical Mac user is probably not going to be too concerned about what FS they are using. As long as it is more stable, faster or whatever, the details are usually unimportant to them.

...but this is OSNews. I am 99% sure that the people that come here--MacOS users or not--do care about these kinds of details and hence, they are posted.

would there be this kind of hype if it was ported/included in linux? why/why not? i would expect this kind of this will excite most linux users above others.

Of course it would receive some "hype". I hope you're not implying that non-GNU/Linux users are ignorant!

If these articles bore you, just don't read them! If you don't care about things like ZFS, just ignore it! For the rest of us that do, information like this is welcome. Sat, 23 Dec 2006 06:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (nobody) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195616 http://osnews.com/thread?195616 i just dont understand why there is a post about ZFS being ported on a mac almost everyday ..i am not anti-apple if that came across in my previous post ..i would have said the same thing if there were the same amount of posts/reposts about ZFS on linux, windows, BSD or any other system ..the amount of frequency is what bugs me ..but your right, i should just stay clear of them if they bug me ..

no, i wasnt impying that GNU/linux are ignorant ..linux users being picky about file systems(ext2/ext3, raiser3/4 ...,...) i would have thought this would have got more press if it was being ported to linux than on a macs.

On a forum somewhere, somebody mentioned this file system on linux and someone else said "no, no another file system" and that was the end of the discussion ..this, i just dont understand Sat, 23 Dec 2006 06:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mtzmtulivu) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195633 http://osnews.com/thread?195633 The importance on ZFS on OSX lies in the attention OSX gets from the Windows world. There is still a OS war going on between Windows on one hand and unix on the other. OSX pretty much covers the client side, Linux as well but in a lesser degree but primely the server side. My point is; for Unix to remain strong OSX is a major factor, whether you like it or not.Edited 2006-12-23 09:39 Sat, 23 Dec 2006 09:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Matt24) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195635 http://osnews.com/thread?195635 >for Unix to remain strong OSX is a major factor, whether you like it or not.

Have a look at UNIX and than have a look at MacOS. UNIX is K.I.S.S., you don't see this within MacOS, KDE or Gnome. I do like Apple for their development through the 70s/80s and the beginning 90s, but not for the nonsense about MacOS X. Sat, 23 Dec 2006 09:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Oliver) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195642 http://osnews.com/thread?195642 Do I understand you correctly, that when Unix/Linux does have a decent gui it becomes some kind of 'bloated'!?
In my opinion Unix without gui is much like a car without coach-work, which is not very attractive to the masses, the people who actually use the computers.
I believe that many unix-administrators fear the gui, because unix will become manageable on a common level, do I have a point?Edited 2006-12-23 10:54 Sat, 23 Dec 2006 10:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Matt24) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195645 http://osnews.com/thread?195645 The typical Mac user is probably not going to be too concerned about what FS they are using.

First of all OS X is used on the server side as well. Admittedly not a lot, but this is the type of feature which could lead to them taking a larger chunk of that market, which is what I believe their plan is. So as such ZFS is aimed more at the sysadmin than the DTP guy. I'm sure this news makes xserve and xraid a little more interesting for many admins considering a hardware upgrade in the not too distant future.

Secondly normal users will care about the features a new filesystem can offer them. For example faster and easier snapshots and the ability to create one large file system out of several smaller disks or partitions. Sure this can be (and has been) done without ZFS, but having ZFS makes it easier for apple to implement and improves the performance of these solutions Sat, 23 Dec 2006 11:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dagw) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195661 http://osnews.com/thread?195661 Yet OS X is by far Apple's most successful software product. Hmm, why could that be? Maybe because it's the most solid OS they ever delivered, and maybe because it's the most user friendly unix desktop ever seen?

User friendly is in the eye of the beholder, though. For those who know and appreciate unix systems, editing a bunch of simple config files may be most productive. For the typical Mac/Windows user, on the other hand, that's really not an option at all.

Having said that, I must admit that when OS X was released, I wished they had stayed with the GUI theme from Rhapsody. Maybe because I grew up with System 7, I dunno.

http://toastytech.com/guis/rhap.html Sat, 23 Dec 2006 13:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bogomipz) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195664 http://osnews.com/thread?195664 There is no war anymore - it's over. And OS X is not really seen as a shining representative of UNIX - by no means. It gets down to two things
1. SUN's fabulous marketing machine considering zfs (and the response of the fanboys)
2. The terrible state the Mac filesystem is in - take anything, it can only get better.

In daily life I wouldn't seriously consider zfs - simply because it has a very short history. In the case of filesystems this can be quite dangerous and difficult to heal if something goes wrong. Yes, yes, there is "self-healing" (another buzz word) - funnily enough the forums of zfs are full of smaller and bigger problems (which is normal - zfs cannot be a rock solid filesystem simply because it's very young in comparison to ext2/3 or ufs). Sat, 23 Dec 2006 13:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (deb2006) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195670 http://osnews.com/thread?195670 So do you evaluate all features that you use with operating systems and applications based on maturity level? While ZFS is new compared to everything else, it works!

Read my OSNews article on Solaris 10 6/06, as far as I am concerned the buzz is justified. I am putting systems into production using ZFS because it gives me flexibility that UFS doesn't. The only real show stopper I am aware of with ZFS is using it with SAN devices (which is one of the things I am looking at doing rather than using Veritas Volume Manager ($$$$)).

And while you can dismiss my comment as a "fanboi response", I don't see the point in not using a feature that makes life easier for a system administrator. I am glad Apple decided to put ZFS to use with OS X. What I could see Apple do is wrap the ZFS commands around a cool and easy to use GUI which would make it even sweeter! Sat, 23 Dec 2006 14:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Robert Escue) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195685 http://osnews.com/thread?195685 Then stop reading those articles. You are free to do so. Sat, 23 Dec 2006 17:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Smeagol) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195701 http://osnews.com/thread?195701 It is high time Mac OS X switched to OpenSolaris kernel. Next big news from OS X could be this, who knows!
http://osgeek.blogspot.com Sat, 23 Dec 2006 18:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (osgeek) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195792 http://osnews.com/thread?195792 I'm wondering too if ZFS makes that much sense for a desktop environment where daily performance matters most and most people don't have more than 2 hard drives or that concerned about 99.99999999999999% reliability. Sun, 24 Dec 2006 00:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (arielb) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195794 http://osnews.com/thread?195794 No, unix is kind of bloated when you have swooshing windows and bubbly scrollbars Sun, 24 Dec 2006 00:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (arielb) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195874 http://osnews.com/thread?195874 I would like to know what your car looks like, something like a Skoda? Sun, 24 Dec 2006 13:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Matt24) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?195935 http://osnews.com/thread?195935 How long do you suppose until it reaches on Linux? Sun, 24 Dec 2006 20:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (de_wizze) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?196233 http://osnews.com/thread?196233 It's my understanding that it won't reach Linux in the kernel anyway due to license issues. Some google summer of code project was trying to get it running in Linux via FUSE. Tue, 26 Dec 2006 15:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (FunkyELF) Comments