ZFS to become default file system in OS X?

[Chad Leigh]

On Jun 6, 2007, at 7:07 PM, Charles Dyer wrote:

> On 06 Jun 2007, at 15:48:22, Chad Leigh wrote:
>
>>
>> On Jun 6, 2007, at 1:44 PM, Kevin Callahan wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On Jun 6, 2007, at 12:36 PM, Chad Leigh wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Jun 6, 2007, at 12:59 PM, Matt Penna wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> There's been speculation on this for some time, but according  
>>>>> to a Sun keynote presentation, ZFS will "become the file system  
>>>>> in Mac OS X" and this will be announced at WWDC. I assume this  
>>>>> means it will be the default, since it was already known that  
>>>>> it was to be included.
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.sun.com/jsp_utils/rvideo.jsp? 
>>>>> video=74cd4547-01df-440b-823d-48878ae34c73
>>>>>
>>>>> He mentions Mac OS X at around 27 minutes in. Real Player  
>>>>> required, unfortunately.
>>>>>
>>>>> More on ZFS for those who are unfamiliar with it: http:// 
>>>>> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettabyte_File_System
>>>>>
>>>>> Seems like very positive news!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> This would assume they have a bootable version of ZFS running  
>>>> (which they could have), something Sun does not even ship yet.
>>>>
>>>> I am excited. I run a ZFS file server on Solaris right now
>>>>
>>>> Chad
>>>
>>> what might be some of the benefits a home network will see ?
>>
>> Well, all your disks become one volume (assuming a raidz or raidz2  
>> configuration).
>
> Ah... I don't know very much about ZFS, but... wouldn't doing  
> things that way have, well, problems?

no (see below)

>
> 1 right now I have a (two-fifths empty) internal 250 GB drive  and  
> two (maybe two thirds full) external FireWire drives, one a 250 GB  
> and one a 320 GB, running on my main system at all times. Because I  
> have the system set to sleep the drives when possible, every now  
> and again I get to wait for one or another of the drives to spin  
> up. How does ZFS configured as One Giant Disk (in my case, One  
> Giant 820 GB disk) handle this? Is there a problem of some type or  
> am I worrying unnecessarily?

worrying uncecessarily.  The devices are still independent at the low  
level driver level and will work like they do now.

AND (this also covers stuff below) -- you do not HAVE to make just  
one big disk with ZFS.  That is just one of its advantages.   You  
have control (I am speaking from Solaris ZFS experience --  I have no  
knowledge on what Apple is doing).  However, to get the integrity  
benefits from ZFS requires multiple drives.

>
> 2 When I want to back up I plug in an additional 320 GB drive  
> (System Backup) and a 500 GB drive (Non System Backup) and have  
> SuperDuper! and Silverlining respectively dump files over. Would  
> ZFS see the two backup drives as part of the One Giant Disk, now  
> 1640 GB, or would there be Two Giant Disks, or what? How do I  
> control this, how do I set it up, where can I find more info? I  
> mount the backup drives and then, after backup is complete,  
> immediately unmount and power them down 'cause I don't want my  
> backups spinning. Would this be a problem with ZFS?

NO as you woujld not add these drives to the ZFS pools that represent  
you One Giant Disk.   You should be able to set up the disks in  
whatever ways you want.  I assume Apple has default things and nice  
GIUs to make it work.

>
> 3 I've heard that ZFS needs hefty CPU power. Someone elsewhere  
> suggested that it might require 64-bit CPUs, which, if true would  
> eliminate any G4-based Macs... such as the eMac that's running OS X  
> Server for my home net. Does ZFS require 64-bit CPUs?

no but on Solaris they limit 32bit CPU machines in terms of various  
buffers and things (I don't know all the details).

>
> 4 How do I transfer data from HFS+ to ZFS? Preferably without  
> buying another hard drive, She Who Must Be Obeyed is unlikely to  
> think much of my wanting another expensive toy...

Probably just leave your existing stuff at HFS.

>
> I looked at <http://www.sun.com/2004-0914/feature/>, but quite a  
> bit of that article seems to be marketing bumf. What's the real  
> deal? I also looked at <http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/zfs/ 
> demos/basics/> which showed some interesting stuff... but not much  
> about moving data from existing file systems to ZFS.

Google ZFS can provide interesting stuff.  ZFS is mostly interesting  
on new HW where you have multiple disks you can raidZ together and  
get data integrity etc.  You can run it on multiple volumes but it  
cannot self correct etc.  I currently run it on a single RAID6 backed  
(HW raid) volume with the intent to add another RAID6 backed volume  
and make a ZFS mirror out of it.   Need time to get it all together  
tough.  (On Solaris)

Chad

>
>>   And you should be able to increase the size of that volume by  
>> adding in a new disk.  No more having to worry about a boot disk  
>> versus extra data disks and needing more space and adding it in  
>> but now how do you move your data around or split across the new  
>> disk...  That sort of thing.  Plus data integrity.  Look at the  
>> wikipedia article and google ZFS
>>
>> Chad
>>
>>
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