ZFS Read/Write Developer Beta for Leopard

[andrewag]

Sounds like a case of "you told before i said you could, lets get back at him".

 

[Morris]

I have read a lot about ZFS recently - with regards to Apple in particular, but the thing I still don't understand is what the real benefit will be for regular users of OS X - especially if Time Machine will not be utilising its main benefits.

Dramatically increase productivity on OS X

It was mentioned a few times in this thread already. Among other things, the self-healing technology and 100% insurance for data-integrity are things every user will benefit from. Even if you have just one single 20GB drive in a four year old iBook.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I've never ever seen a Windows computer consistently sleep/hibernate. Makes me wonder why Apple even considered it in the first place. (They should know by now that Windows screws things like that up.)

I've used to keep my XP laptop on for days at a time, just suspending it and unsuspending it.

 

[dernhelm]

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

HawaiiMacAddict

Nope. More likely it will just support ZFS as an ALTERNATIVE file system for secondary disk drives. If they announce they have read/write/boot - then maybe you've got something. Still seems odd, though. There has to be a really good reason that ZFS was not even mentioned at WWDC. A better reason than Jonathan Schwartz stole Jobs thunder. Because even if ZFS wasn't going to be the default system - having read/write versions of it in developer builds within a couple of weeks is still really positive news.

Something odd is going on here. I just wish I knew what it was...

{edit} After reading ALL the posts I get it now. Eagerly awaiting 10.5.1...

 

[dernhelm]

I've used to keep my XP laptop on for days at a time, just suspending it and unsuspending it.

When you can do that for MONTHS at a time, let us know.

 

[0098386]

I've only read up on ZFS a little, but it sounds like a smart step in the right direction. I'd have to back up all my drives for the big switch over though which could take a good decade.

 

[glmluca2003]

can someone please explain me what's the difference between ZFS and Tiger's file system? performance improvement? reliability ?

THXX**

 

[rob@robburns.co]

Ok excuse my ignorance, can someone explain the real world advantages (no techno-mumbo-jumbo) of ZFS to the average consumer? Doesn't Time Machine work without ZFS anyway? There just seems to be so much hype about this filesystem; am I missing something that will change my life of computing so dramatically? Or, does one need to be a system admin that manages a huge amount of data to see the true advantage of ZFS?

ZFS may be more processor intensive than HFS+ and may actually benchmark slower in some circumstances. However, for servers it will have many benefits that will override those performance issues.

For consumer level hardware it has several benefits that may also make it worth having. 1) sparse file support which means that for very small files, they do not take up an entire block on the disk. Especially with package directories and spotlight's need to search small duplicate files for things such as Address Book records and Mail messages, it means Mac OS X has a lot of small files on the file system. 2) ZFS automatically takes snapshots of the drive as it changes. Time Machine will likely be able to take advantage of this feature so that when a large file has a small change, only the changed blocks will need to be backed up through Time Machine. This will mean back-up history can go further back in time (especially for users who make frequent small changes to large files). 3) the data integrity features will make data more secure no matter how much or little hardware you have. 4) many other features such as compression and encryption can be added to the file system that won't rely on kernel level support. In other words you could set authentication and authorities on the file system and no one could get access to those files (even by moving it to another computer or logging in as root). This could improve FileVault or make it easier to make any folder a
FileVault wihtout copying the entire folder's content to a new secure disk image.

There are many other features of ZFS, but I mainly wanted to focus on what it might bring to the consumer level hardware. I wouldn't expect any GUI tools for ZFS until 10.6 or beyond. Probably not the default boot volume until 10.7 if ever.

 

[glmluca2003]

ZFS may be more processor intensive than HFS+ and may actually benchmark slower in some circumstances. However, for servers it will have many benefits that will override those performance issues.

For consumer level hardware it has several benefits that may also make it worth having. 1) sparse file support which means that for very small files, they do not take up an entire block on the disk. Especially with package directories and spotlight's need to search files for things such as Address Book and Mail, it means Mac OS X has a lot of small files on the file system. 2) ZFS automatically takes snapshots of the drive as it changes. Time Machine will likely be able to take advantage of this feature so that when a large file has a small change, only the changed blocks will need to be backed up through Time Machine. This will mean back history can go further back in time (especially for users who make frequent small changes to large files). 3) the data integrity features will make data more secure no matter how much or little hardware you have. 4) many other extensible features such as compression and encryption can be added to the file system that won't rely on kernel level support. In other words you could set authentication and authorities on the file system and no one could get access to those files (even by moving it to another computer or logging in as root).

There are many other features of ZFS, but I mainly wanted to focus on what it might bring to the consumer level hardware. I wouldn't expect any GUI tools for ZFS until 10.6 or beyond. Probably not the default boot volume until 10.7 if ever.

Now I see... Thank you!

 

[Morris]

Nope. More likely it will just support ZFS as an ALTERNATIVE file system for secondary disk drives. If they announce they have read/write/boot - then maybe you've got something. Still seems odd, though. There has to be a really good reason that ZFS was not even mentioned at WWDC. A better reason than Jonathan Schwartz stole Jobs thunder. Because even if ZFS wasn't going to be the default system - having read/write versions of it in developer builds within a couple of weeks is still really positive news.

Something odd is going on here. I just wish I knew what it was...

{edit} After reading ALL the posts I get it now. Eagerly awaiting 10.5.1...

I think it's very simple. Apple has never ever announced ZFS, said it would be in Leopard or when it would be ready. The only thing Apple has ever done regarding ZFS was denying its use in Leopard.

All other things, that it would be in Leopard, that it would be used for Time Machine etc. were nothing more than rumours by others, sometimes downright speculation, sometimes based on files found in Leopard dev-seeds.

Apple never said ZFS would be in Leopard because it is not ready yet. Apple doesn't like promising things they won't be able to deliver. Look at what happened to Vista. Years of showing off all these good things to come with Vista, only to scrap them one by one when the release date came near.

Until it is ready for public use, you won't hear Jobs say anything about ZFS to the general public.

 

[justflie]

ZFS is well suited for this purpose.
...
I smell changing to Windows without re-booting.

mmm, it smells delicious!

 

[goosnarrggh]

mmm, it smells delicious!

What is ZFS going to do to benefit quick switching into Windows? Last time I checked, Windows has no means of reading OR writing ZFS.

 

[Mr.damien]

I always though that it was a windows thing and credited it to m$'s incompetent programmers. I can't tell you how disappointed I was to see the same thing happen in OSX once I pulled the trigger and made the switch.

There is also a part of microsoft incompetent programmer on windows. I work everyday on a DELL windows XP desktop, and only saving a file put the computer on its knees for a few seconds.
Man I checked the Task Manager and while my CPU is 99% free, my desktop entirely freeze. My Computer can freeze for a few minutes if the Norton Antivirus starts to scan the whole hard drive so I am obliged to kill the process.

So Yes, this type of lag happens on every OSes, but I think there is something that really suck in the windows data layer because it doesn't suck that much on Unix oses (I don't know for Vista).

 

[twoodcc]

alright! great news

 

[MrMacMan]

Lets again ask the important question asked on page one:

What published reports on the internet?

Thanks, MrMacMan.

 

[pengu]

mmm, it smells delicious!

i think actually it smells more like a load of ****.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

There is also a part of microsoft incompetent programmer on windows. I work everyday on a DELL windows XP desktop, and only saving a file put the computer on its knees for a few seconds.
Man I checked the Task Manager and while my CPU is 99% free, my desktop entirely freeze. My Computer can freeze for a few minutes if the Norton Antivirus starts to scan the whole hard drive so I am obliged to kill the process.

So Yes, this type of lag happens on every OSes, but I think there is something that really suck in the windows data layer because it doesn't suck that much on Unix oses (I don't know for Vista).

Yeah, that is because of Windows' horrid process and I/O priority system. Tiger's process priority is much better, but I/O priority is just as bad as Windows (hence the beachballs). Leopard will fix this shortcoming. As far as ZFS goes, it'll be great for external drives once read/write support is finished, at the very least - even if full boot support isn't ready yet.

 

[heisetax]

So we should expect ZFS in like, say, version 10.5.4? Funky. I've never heard of a new filesystem format introduced in the middle of an OS cycle.

Then again, wasn't that what Microsoft was going to do with WinFS? (Oops. Checked Wikipedia. They canned that idea, too.)

HFS+ was introduced with System 8.1. Part of that may have been to keep in from the supported list on the Mac Clones.

Bill the TaxMan

 

[chrysalis]

Don't rush things

Actually, I'm glad that Apple doesn't rush things.

A filesystem is a very critical part of an operating system. A tiny bug can have serious implications, data loss because of a bug in the filesystem in unacceptable.

FreeBSD decided to merge an early port of ZFS and FreeBSD zealots are proud to say "yeah, FreeBSD has ZFS". But the truth is that ZFS under FreeBSD is a disaster. Things will obviously improve with time, but nowadays it is slow and bogus (I got kernel panics after a few minutes). Why merge an half-baked filesystem? This is a really silly attitude. How to trust an operating system for serious work if it has unreliable filesystems!

If Apple needs 6 months, 1 year or 2 years before making an official release of Leopard with rock-solide ZFS support, that's fine. What people want from a professionnal OS is that things work as expected, not features in beta-state.

ZFS is cool, but is ZFS an absolute requirement for everybody, now? Because ZFS is there, does it mean that HFS+ will magically stop working? No.

Take your time, Apple.

 

[BSDUser]

Actually, I'm glad that Apple doesn't rush things.

A filesystem is a very critical part of an operating system. A tiny bug can have serious implications, data loss because of a bug in the filesystem in unacceptable.

FreeBSD decided to merge an early port of ZFS and FreeBSD zealots are proud to say "yeah, FreeBSD has ZFS". But the truth is that ZFS under FreeBSD is a disaster. Things will obviously improve with time, but nowadays it is slow and bogus (I got kernel panics after a few minutes). Why merge an half-baked filesystem? This is a really silly attitude. How to trust an operating system for serious work if it has unreliable filesystems!

If Apple needs 6 months, 1 year or 2 years before making an official release of Leopard with rock-solide ZFS support, that's fine. What people want from a professionnal OS is that things work as expected, not features in beta-state.

ZFS is cool, but is ZFS an absolute requirement for everybody, now? Because ZFS is there, does it mean that HFS+ will magically stop working? No.

Take your time, Apple.

ZFS in FreeBSD is in the -CURRENT branch, which is the unstable, experimental version of the latest FreeBSD sources; kernel panics, amongst many other problems, are to be expected. Did you think you would get rock solid stability from an operating system and file system when you were using the alpha, changes-by-the-day version? Even when FreeBSD 7 is released, it has been explicitly stated that ZFS will still be an "experimental feature".

 

[FunkyELF]

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

HawaiiMacAddict

That would be nice since it would be "free" with the FS but from what I hear it isn't ZFS based.

 

[kamiboy]

Yeah, that is because of Windows' horrid process and I/O priority system. Tiger's process priority is much better, but I/O priority is just as bad as Windows (hence the beachballs). Leopard will fix this shortcoming.

Are you serious? I mean, do you know for fact that Apple is looking to improve I/O priority with Leopard or do you just assume so.

Because if they are, and if Leopard rids me of my most abhorred nemesis, the beach ball of doom, then that is friggin awesome beyond words. Seriously, OS freeze ups during I/O operations have been the most annoying part of computers for me ever since I started using one.

 

[FunkyELF]

Ok excuse my ignorance, can someone explain the real world advantages (no techno-mumbo-jumbo) of ZFS to the average consumer? Doesn't Time Machine work without ZFS anyway? There just seems to be so much hype about this filesystem; am I missing something that will change my life of computing so dramatically? Or, does one need to be a system admin that manages a huge amount of data to see the true advantage of ZFS?

No data corruption ever...guaranteed.
Ever play an mp3 file and it has a skip that it didn't have before?

 

[0racle]

I have read a lot about ZFS recently - with regards to Apple in particular, but the thing I still don't understand is what the real benefit will be for regular users of OS X - especially if Time Machine will not be utilising its main benefits.

Apple makes a Server product as well you know.

 

[Whiskerdreams]

Are you serious? I mean, do you know for fact that Apple is looking to improve I/O priority with Leopard or do you just assume so.

Because if they are, and if Leopard rids me of my most abhorred nemesis, the beach ball of doom, then that is friggin awesome beyond words. Seriously, OS freeze ups during I/O operations have been the most annoying part of computers for me ever since I started using one.

One of the things mentioned by Steve during the Keynote specifically during the new Finder section was that most of the beach balls were caused by lack of threading in the finder. So Leopard should take care of a lot of the beach balls.