ZFS Read/Write Developer Beta for Leopard

[MacRumors]

It appears that Sun's Jonathan Schwartz may have known what he was talking about when he claimed that ZFS support was coming to Mac OS X at WWDC.

WWDC came and went, however, with no ZFS announcement from Apple. Instead, Apple's Brian Croll flat out said ZFS is not happening. He later clarified that ZFS for Leopard was present but "read-only" -- meaning that Leopard was unable to write data to ZFS volumes.

Now, according to published reports on the internet, Apple has actually seeded developers with a ZFS Read/Write Beta for Leopard. The new ZFS Read/Write beta enables full read/write capabilities to Apple's Mac OS X (Leopard).

[inkswamp]

While we don't generally subscribe to conspiracy theories behind Apple's motivations, this constant back-and-forth about ZFS's inclusion in Leopard is suggestive of some behind-the-scenes drama with Sun's CEO's premature announcement.

Or it could be just a general lack of coordinating when it comes to disseminating the info internally. If you've ever worked in any large, corporate environment, you know how easily even important info can be missed and/or misunderstood. That whole ZFS-is-in-now-it's-out-now-it's-in-again thing could be easily explained away as a series of people knowing nothing or knowing only part of the info they were talking about.

[paulyras]

My head is spinning...

[HawaiiMacAddict]

... so maybe ZFS really IS how Time Machine creates the backups. Hmmmmmmm

HawaiiMacAddict

[JonHimself]

I'm still assuming that this was always the case but Mr. Jobs got pissed when the other guy (can't remember his name even though I just read it in the article) said it would be in Leopard. He probably was going to at least mention it at WWDC but just pulled it so that it didn't really get any publicity.

[DavidCar]

What published reports on the internet?

[arn]

Originally Posted by inkswamp

That whole ZFS-is-in-now-it's-out-now-it's-in-again thing could be easily explained away as a series of people knowing nothing or knowing only part of the info they were talking about.

Very possible. though it seems odd they didn't release ZFS read/write beta at WWDC, and waited 2 weeks.

I guess, for all we know, they could have announced it under nda.

arn

[ezekielrage_99]

That sounds awesome, if Leopard comes out with ZFS supported fully it would make a lot more sense considering the rumors before WWDC07.

[Me1000]

so maybe ZFS really IS how Time Machine creates the backups. Hmmmmmmm

it could be, but it wasn't in the previous developer builds

[sparkleytone]

Originally Posted by HawaiiMacAddict

... so maybe ZFS really IS how Time Machine creates the backups. Hmmmmmmm

HawaiiMacAddict

It works just fine without ZFS.

[flopticalcube]

This keeps alive my hopes for quick OS switching!

[ukp]

Originally Posted by ezekielrage_99

That sounds awesome, if Leopard comes out with ZFS supported fully it would make a lot more sense considering the rumors before WWDC07.

ZFS will be read-only in 10.5.0. This is a beta addon which I imagine will be in 10.5.1 or something.

[kcmac]

You think these guys would learn by now that ya don't steal the thunder from Jobs.
Of course, we will know the real story soon as posted on the FS blog.

[SMM]

It could be a very benign and logical situation.

Many knowledgeable posters expressed concerns over the challenges of converting ZFS to 10.4, and older installations. Apple may not have signed-off on a solution to this, and so did not want to announce it? It is always better to surprise than to disappoint (are you listening Bill?).

Regardless, the announcement may just have been pre-mature, even though the goal is to move to ZFS. I do not know any more than the rest of you, but I would suggest the news (if true) is great. The need to speculate on the rest is just an intellectual exercise (not that there is anything wrong with that).

[Infinity]

Originally Posted by kcmac

You think these guys would learn by now that ya don't steal the thunder from Jobs.
Of course, we will know the real story soon as posted on the FS blog.

Thats probably what this whole drama boiled down to.

[Chosenbydestiny]

What I'd like is for apple to finally come up with a way for it to write to NTFS formatted external drives... Will ZFS rectify that?

[cwryn]

I've read about ZFS on here for a while and finally looked it up on wiki to see what it was...

Now my head hurts.

[Westside guy]

Originally Posted by kcmac

You think these guys would learn by now that ya don't steal the thunder from Jobs.

It's hard to imagine a file system stealing much thunder from anybody. Sure ZFS is cool, but... it's discussion-forum cool. I doubt if even many of the WWDC attendees understand the differences in file systems, or really care - let alone the wider world of Mac users.

I suspect there's very little behind this whole thing, except maybe Sun jumping the gun before Apple had its ZFS support quite where it wanted.

[iMeowbot]

Originally Posted by Chosenbydestiny

What I'd like is for apple to finally come up with a way for it to write to NTFS formatted external drives...

There is an unofficial way now, perhaps Apple will adopt that in some form or another.

Will ZFS rectify that?

Nope, completely different file system.

[Peace]

Originally Posted by flopticalcube

This keeps alive my hopes for quick OS switching!

ZFS is well suited for this purpose.

Originally Posted by Chosenbydestiny

What I'd like is for apple to finally come up with a way for it to write to NTFS formatted external drives... Will ZFS rectify that?

Not sure about that since NTFS is a filesystem of it's own and is way different than ZFS.

Windows-Read Only
ZFS-Read Only in 10.5.0 (GM I'm guessing ) Read/Write in a developer build?
The accidental statement on the Leopard Bootcamp page that implied fast O/S switching..

I smell changing to Windows without re-booting.

[eddietr]

Wow, ZFS is absolutely awesome. What a fresh way to think about filesystems. I'm almost as excited about getting ZFS this year as I am about getting my iPhone on Friday!

(Almost. )

This is my best Apple year in 24 years of being a customer! First this really awesome 8-core Mac Pro, then the iPhone, then Leopard. Sweet.

[revjames]

Originally Posted by Westside guy

It's hard to imagine a file system stealing much thunder from anybody. Sure ZFS is cool, but... it's discussion-forum cool. I doubt if even many of the WWDC attendees understand the differences in file systems, or really care - let alone the wider world of Mac users.

I suspect there's very little behind this whole thing, except maybe Sun jumping the gun before Apple had its ZFS support quite where it wanted.

As an admin with a bunch of xserves i'm sweating the days till ZFS in on the servers. It will make me sleep much easier at night.

I don't know about time machine but i'm guessing if it's already in the builds and ZFS isn't than it's not zfs based. Prob more like rsnapshot.
www.rsnapshot.org

[ITR 81]

And now we know why Leo was delayed to Oct.

Good thing too because I want my ZFS!

[Hak]

"While we don't generally subscribe to conspiracy theories behind Apple's motivations, this constant back-and-forth about ZFS's inclusion in Leopard is suggestive of some behind-the-scenes drama with Sun's CEO's premature announcement."

No.... No conspiracy, no drama with Sun's CEO's premature announcement or anything like this.

The ZFS developer preview 1.0 is available for all ADC members, and from the ReadMe file we can read:

"ZFS is a new filesystem from Sun Microsystems which has been ported by Apple to Mac OS X. The initial (10.5.0) release of Leopard will
restrict ZFS to read-only, so no ZFS pools or filesystems can be modified or created. This Developer Preview will enable full read/write
capability, which includes the creation/destruction of ZFS pools and filesystems."

So it is clear that the initial release 10.5.0 of Leopard won't have read/write ZFS capability as officially stated by Apple. However it seems that Apple is really committed to ZFS as this developer build shows, they plan to bring the read/write capability to further updates of Leopard.

[arn]

Originally Posted by Hak

No.... No conspiracy, no drama with Sun's CEO's premature announcement or anything like this.

alright, you win. I removed that passage.

arn