Apple Looking To Port ZFS for Mac OS X?

[sjk]

VFS means Virtual File System.

Yes, I understand the traditional definition of VFS, which is why I was asking for clarification of bousozoku's usage:

I'm still surprised that UFS2 or a virtual file system (VFS) hasn't been implemented on Mac OS X.

... because OS X uses a VFS abstraction layer for supported filesystems.

 

[daveL]

Yes, I understand the traditional definition of VFS, which is why I was asking for clarification of bousozoku's usage:

I'm still surprised that UFS2 or a virtual file system (VFS) hasn't been implemented on Mac OS X.

... because OS X uses a VFS abstraction layer for supported filesystems.

Sorry for missing that. Perhaps someone benefitted from my post. Can't hurt.

 

[kalisphoenix]

Really comparing Solaris with mac OSX is almost silly. They do different things.
Next silly question" Which is best a BMW two seater or a Ford F250 pickup?

Right, so -- like I said? We all know that Solaris is a fine OS, and obviously the talented engineers at Sun haven't been waving their SPARCs in the wind all these years. Solaris is a great OS for CS and IT people with good budgets or home UNIX enthusiasts needing a dedicated server. It's just not going to cut it for Ma and Pa, generally, and it doesn't even cut it for me.

It's not like we're comparing Keira Knightly with a xylophone constructed out of oatmeal-coated squirrels, here. We are comparing two mature currently-marketed operating systems based on UNIX with graphical interfaces, with my gracefully-inserted caveat that this applies only to the average end user. If you want dtrace or zones, then OS X's not going to satisfy you.

It's really to bad Silicone Graphicswent downhil. I used to know an SGI sales rep who said he could take an SGI loaner machine into a Mac-only graphics shop and quickly get all those "Photoshoppers" saying "I want one". IRIX was nicer then OX9 and the hardware left Apple in the dust by like a factor of 10. But no more.

Gah. I hate IRIX and their @#$%ing Interactive Desktop that makes Windows 3.0 look like a naked and raunchy Monica Bellucci. It's great for what it does, I guess, it's just not my thing. You wouldn't believe the trouble I went to to get that OS off my Indy. Or, more accurately, to get Gentoo on to it.

the general user has absolutely what's under the hood of the aqua interface. you could taheoretcially replace darwin with windows nt, linux, sun os, openbsd, hurd, etc, and the end-user wouldn't know the difference.

Fantastic -- but in consensual reality, we're stuck with Solaris with CDE/KDE/GNOME/*Box/Windowmaker vs. OS X with Aqua If someone is unaware of the strengths and weaknesses of Solaris, they're probably not going to engineer a compatibility layer to run Aqua and OS X applications on Solaris.

Seriously: if you polled a random portion of the populace, sat them in front of a Mac for an hour and then Solaris for an hour, I'd be willing to bet that well over 95% would run screaming back to the Mac. And that's what my post was about -- not about networking benchmarks or Solaris's equivalent of the chroot jail, but just plain simple end user ease-of-use. OS X beats Solaris hands down. If you take a high end server tech or an experienced UNIX server administrator, he'll most likely prefer Solaris because of its features and robustness. I'm willing to bet Nagromme is neither; he's probably like me in that he's a technically-inclined and curious person who still likes to see a Mac label on the box when he buys a printer.

 

[boncellis]

Whatever the end result with the future file system, I hope Apple integrates this kind of thinking into their future products. I like the fact that Apple continues to incorporate open source innovation into their software. It's one of the first things that attracted me to OS X.

 

[jemo07]

Will make it to OS X Sooner than later!

Hi guys, this is my first post, so don’t shoot the messenger! I have been browsing for a long time and this news was of merit to reply.

Ok, here is my take on ZFS and as I state, I believe that apple will bring this to OSX sooner that latter for two major feature in the FS that will be currently lacking for a modern OS and it’s underlying FS.

-Snapshot technology
-Volume management at the OS layer
-Performance gains

Ok, ever since the Raiser revolution, lots of modern OS and their FS have been adding Snapshots to their FS as part of their standard feature set. M$ has their version, called Volume Shadow Copies and the WinFS promise should bring a new set of feature sets that could leave Apple out of the Enterprise market they so much like to gain a foot in the door. This Snapshot technology is key for both the client and server market, as they should be able to interact regardless id the FS is local or accessed via a Network FS such as NFS o SMB/CIFS variant.

This interaction of both client/server is key at both the volume manager layer and the actual FS. Apple needs a way to create a “Fast” Raid protected volume that could be integrated in the current FS transparently for both the user or the application. If you consider that Apple is trying to gain in the be it niche market of digital media production, there is a key need is this market that is clearly understood, media companies need A LOT of storage and will continue to need more for a long time. And if we consider HD formats, this will explode the current need by a factor of nearly 3X….. so if a local stain needs 300TB of storage now, they would need nearly a Petabyte by years end just to stay on course. Here, easy VM and local + network FS integration is key!!!

Finally, it’s no secret that the current FS in Apple is slow, if you look at most of the benchmarks were apples where compared to house fixture (windoz) using the same app, one of the key factors that is left out is the fact that the FS used by Apple today is SLOW. Just look at most HTTP benchmarks and pay close attention to the dataset and the IOs and you can clearly see the uncompetitive advantage that apple has here.

So, for all of us, Enterprise account or consumers, lets hope Apple chooses wisely and get the right and fast FS on their systems ASAP… heck I like to see the share hit $100 in 12 moths.

Regards,

JoseM

 

[mdavey]

This is fantastic news! ZFS should result in a significant performance improvement over HFS.

The metadata capabilities of ZFS could lead to some really interesting developments for Spotlight technology that I can only start to imagine (for instance, we might see Spotlight offering semantic searches).

There could also be some compelling new possibilities for .mac (such as 'instant' backups).

As others have pointed out, while ZFS is great for the Enterprise, it is also a really good choice for the home user - it is easy to administrate and encourages best practices (taking snapshots and backups) without the annoyance of not being able to use the machine while administrative tasks are taking place.