ZFS (and Snow Leopard) to Speed up Solid State Drive Performance?

[The Tall One]

5 years

I'm gonna give it 5 years until it will be a chore to buy non SSD macs. Although cool, they certainly are not worth the buy right now. But maybe someday.

 

[proc]

It seems that the Finder (partial) rewrite could have been stimulated by the wish to have bootable ZFS in Snow Leopard as this post on MacOSForge suggests.

A quote from the post:"Since ZFS has a much different structure than HFS+ (pool based storage instead of device based) a lot of assumptions for tools and other parts of the system like Finder are no longer valid. Hence there’s still quite a bit of work that needs to be done to make us fit seamlessly with the rest of the system."

Another post says this:"Not yet but we are working on it. Since booting off of ZFS requires changes to other parts of the system we won't likely be able to release it in a simple tarball. However our goal is to be able to have it available for the next OS X release if we can."

What do you think?

 

[lowbatteries]

It seems that the Finder (partial) rewrite could have been stimulated by the wish to have bootable ZFS in Snow Leopard as this post on MacOSForge suggests.

A quote from the post:"Since ZFS has a much different structure than HFS+ (pool based storage instead of device based) a lot of assumptions for tools and other parts of the system like Finder are no longer valid. Hence there’s still quite a bit of work that needs to be done to make us fit seamlessly with the rest of the system."

Another post says this:"Not yet but we are working on it. Since booting off of ZFS requires changes to other parts of the system we won't likely be able to release it in a simple tarball. However our goal is to be able to have it available for the next OS X release if we can."

What do you think?

That's an interesting theory, especially if OS X is somehow going to incorporate the snapshot feature of ZFS.

 

[MShock]

That's an interesting theory, especially if OS X is somehow going to incorporate the snapshot feature of ZFS.

I agree. OpenSolaris recently adapted GNOME's Nautilus file manager with an ability to scroll through snapshots. http://blogs.sun.com/erwann/entry/zfs_on_the_desktop_zfs

I think ZFS also provides the a fundamental goal of Snow Leopard - efficiency! If there is a Cocoa Finder rewrite, that should allow the Finder to be more flexible to take advantage of ZFS capabilities for the end user. Snapshots is just the beginning, networking will be second (much easier for business and students), and saving hard drive space - particularly on my laptop (zfs doesn't build new files with new saves, but has a core file and saves every modification, the user can select a modifiction and add it to the file). http://blogs.sun.com/erickustarz/entry/zfs_on_a_laptop.

I also hope this means a desktop GUI redesign, something like a cross of Sony.com (US) and the iPhone interface. I want tabs, more black glass, and system preferences pane for the Finder to modify it to add features similar to Pathfinder 5.0!

It would be nice to see this compete with Windows 7! Blow Vista rewrite out of the water!

 

[lowbatteries]

I agree. OpenSolaris recently adapted GNOME's Nautilus file manager with an ability to scroll through snapshots. http://blogs.sun.com/erwann/entry/zfs_on_the_desktop_zfs

Quick Look with a time slider! that would be sweet.

I also hope this means a desktop GUI redesign, something like a cross of Sony.com (US) and the iPhone interface. I want tabs, more black glass, and system preferences pane for the Finder to modify it to add features similar to Pathfinder 5.0!

*shudders at flash websites* - I don't see how either the iPhone UI or the Sony website resembles the top of a desk. Perhaps those paradigms are becoming antiquated? Either way I like the desktop/dock just the way it is. Though I would like to see overlay icons on the dock's stacks, as well as be able to make stacks out of smart folders.

It would be nice to see this compete with Windows 7! Blow Vista rewrite out of the water!

I have absolutely no doubt that it will. Even if they add no new features, as they've promised. Macs have never sold because they had the most features, but because they got the features they do have right.

 

[MShock]

[/QUOTE]
I have absolutely no doubt that it will. Even if they add no new features, as they've promised. Macs have never sold because they had the most features, but because they got the features they do have right.[/QUOTE]

I meant more on performance than on the market. Both would be nice, but market-wise, you're probably right.

 

[monguesto]

Dual SSD and HDD

Has anyone heard discussion of a system that uses both ssd & hdd, for highest speed between the two? Sony has a system like that.

 

[kdarling]

Here's a snippet from a TGdaily article referring to Samsung about their new SSD line: "It states the new 128GB SSDs will last "approximately 20 times longer than the generally accepted 4-5 year life span of a notebook PC hard drive". That's 80-100 years before it kicks."

Too bad Samsung doesn't specify in their press releases what they're referring to. The fact that the drive can stay powered up longer? Who knows. I don't think it's about cycle lifetime, that's for sure:

40nm MLC NAND, as used in those new cheap SSDs (and the iPhone, for that matter), has only a 5,000 erase/write cycle life. That's two or three orders of magnitude less than SLC NAND.

It should be kept in mind that it does not take 128 billion writes to "use up" a cycle. Each memory block is 256KB and must be erased/re-written totally. Change ONE BIT every 256K on disk, for example, and it only takes 500 thousand writes to hit all the blocks. Using the infamous "rogue recorder" example, we're talking about one year of life for a 128GB drive.

PS. Yes, I'm taking the extreme examples, but I think it's important to point out that MLC based SSD makers are going the other way by using some pretty rosy scenarios for their specs.

 

[chris200x9]

I think "dense" is not understanding the implications for the user interface. There are many reasons why more people use MacOS X than Linux, a case-insensitive file system is one of them.

hahahaha that is hilarious! you can't be serious, care to tell me how? Let's face it unless you are working in terminal would the end user even know they have a case sensitive file system especially if they are "lazy" like the rest of your post alleges?

 

[babyj]

So if I've read everything correctly, Snow Leopard will full ZFS support but Apple haven't said whether it will be the default filing system or if there will be an option for it to be for home users?

Personally, I'd be surprised if either is the case and that at best it will be severely crippled for end users. The snapshot functionality (and all the related stuff) is great but would cause a lot of confusion for end users, for example the total drive capacity minus the size of all files on the drive does not equal the remaining free space.

The worst part is when you change a file that was created via snapshot - you will often see free disk space reduce but the size of allocated files stay the same. Try explaining that to an end user.

Using it for Time Machine drives makes a whole lot of sense, but it would raise the question of why Apple didn't use it for Time Machine drives in the first place rather than in effect, hacking their own version of it instead.