You're not the only one! I understand that ZFS is really cool, but I think the underlying reasons are lost on a lot of us.
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Lack of ZFS File System Support in Snow Leopard Due to Licensing Issues?
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You're not the only one! I understand that ZFS is really cool, but I think the underlying reasons are lost on a lot of us.
As it was said, you are using it through FUSE. It's not part of the kernel, unlike Btrfs.
So you're using the Userspace driver, since ZFS is available on Linux only through FUSE right now. Very nice choice for a "storage" partition.
As I said, it's a "storage" partition, not my main storage partition. xfs is what I'm using for my real storage.
I completely agree with everything you said. I'm glad to see other FreeBSD users on the forums too
Finally some one agrees with some one else on this forum!
I am generally a Linux user but I used to have FreeBSD on my old router box - now a days I mostly try it out in a VM. But I do keep up-to-date with the happenings in FreeBSD land.
I am considering building a ZFS storage server and leaning towards FreeBSD - Solaris is not there yet - they change a lot of things and there isn't really decent support for hardware. And learning another package management system is far too much work for me at this point.
What do you use FreeBSD for - desktop/workstation/router/everything?
router/servers. We use FreeBSD almost exclusively at work. We also have a lot of dual wan routers at clients running on alix boards. Also my home fileserver, got a nice ssd for l2arc cache too. Just replaced a failed 750gb in there last Friday.
You should use RELENG_7 or 8-BETA for the latest/greatest ZFS goodness.
ZFS or WinFS....which vaporware will be unceremoniously murdered first?
You probably shouldn't ever comment again. Especially on things you know nothing about.
Opensolaris is more then enough there. I've used it for the past 2 years to manage my 10 terabyte personal storage pool. While I love FreeBSD for all of my development and hosting needs, I don't want to deal with a ported storage technology. Opensolaris stays up to date with all of the latest fixes and features.Finally some one agrees with some one else on this forum!
I am generally a Linux user but I used to have FreeBSD on my old router box - now a days I mostly try it out in a VM. But I do keep up-to-date with the happenings in FreeBSD land.
I am considering building a ZFS storage server and leaning towards FreeBSD - Solaris is not there yet - they change a lot of things and there isn't really decent support for hardware. And learning another package management system is far too much work for me at this point.
What do you use FreeBSD for - desktop/workstation/router/everything?
We get it. You love zones. Posting it in every thread on SL will not drive the point home harder....
My guess is that this is the real reason ZFS was left out, not licensing. The average mac user really has little use for ZFS. It's something the average Solaris user needs but few mac usrs have big disk farms and terabytes of data to manage.
The other reason I think Apple left it out was that they were unable to make an easy to understand interface for the end user. Solaris people are happy to type commands into a terminal but most mac users are unable to do that. It hard to think of how a graphical interface could make ZFS simpler you'd still have to understand the underlaying concepts to know which button to click
To learn more about ZFS
I've written about ZFS for several years, follow the ZFS discussion list and met the ZFS engineering team. I was a Sun employee for 3 years in the mid 90s, a DEC employee for 14 years and have followed the storage business for over 25 years.
For a short intro to what it means for Mac users read http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=335
For a longer, more detailed look at it try http://storagemojo.com/zfs-threat-or-menace-pt-i/
As for what went wrong between Sun and Apple - and something did go wrong, otherwise the read-only ZFS would have remained from Leopard Server - recall that Apple is secretive. In a negotiation like this very few people would have the whole story. Some speculation is required.
Also, licensing DTrace - a technology invented by a Sun engineer - under CDDL does not make CDDL automatically OK for a foundation technology where the business risk of getting it wrong is much greater. NetApp is suing Sun for patent infringement over ZFS. DTrace can be turned off - a file system, not so easily.
Robin Harris
StorageMojo.com
I've written about ZFS for several years, follow the ZFS discussion list and met the ZFS engineering team. I was a Sun employee for 3 years in the mid 90s, a DEC employee for 14 years and have followed the storage business for over 25 years.
For a short intro to what it means for Mac users read http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=335
For a longer, more detailed look at it try http://storagemojo.com/zfs-threat-or-menace-pt-i/
As for what went wrong between Sun and Apple - and something did go wrong, otherwise the read-only ZFS would have remained from Leopard Server - recall that Apple is secretive. In a negotiation like this very few people would have the whole story. Some speculation is required.
Also, licensing DTrace - a technology invented by a Sun engineer - under CDDL does not make CDDL automatically OK for a foundation technology where the business risk of getting it wrong is much greater. NetApp is suing Sun for patent infringement over ZFS. DTrace can be turned off - a file system, not so easily.
Robin Harris
StorageMojo.com
What variant are you running? The express editions Sun offered had no support or updates of any kind and OpenSolaris.com distribution's first release was 2008.11 which means less than a year ago. There are others like the debian based one (forgot the name) that are incomplete in terms of available packages.
ZFS or WinFS....which vaporware will be unceremoniously murdered first?
You cant call ZFS vaporware cause its being used.
I'm using OpenSolaris 2009.06 and recently changed my repository to the 2010.02 Developer. So whatever the hell they call that now a days, solaris super ultra express community edition what not.
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/downloads/
Updates? pkg image-update and you're done. The developer releases keep coming out on regular intervals and the update is one line and painless. I don't require any type of support outside of what I can dig up on forums.
Obviously opensolaris is a bit tricky if you aren't using certified know working hardware, especially SATA controllers, those can be a bitch. But what kind of fun is it, if everything just works?
ZFS or WinFS....which vaporware will be unceremoniously murdered first?
ZFS actually exists in production though, just not for Mac users.
Finally some one agrees with some one else on this forum!
I am generally a Linux user but I used to have FreeBSD on my old router box - now a days I mostly try it out in a VM. But I do keep up-to-date with the happenings in FreeBSD land.
I am considering building a ZFS storage server and leaning towards FreeBSD - Solaris is not there yet - they change a lot of things and there isn't really decent support for hardware. And learning another package management system is far too much work for me at this point.
What do you use FreeBSD for - desktop/workstation/router/everything?
I'm using FreeNAS for file storage, and it's based on FreeBSD 7.2 I believe.
in other words... very little for YOU. Many people apparently love their precious data, just not you.
I hope you're being sarcastic. It's definitely the most impressive file system to ever come along, and it'd be an amazing addition to Mac; it would have been worth $29 alone had it been in SL.
Exactly - finding supported hardware for Solaris has been lot of trouble and it's just not that well tested even on newly supported hardware - then there is zero support. And I am done fighting for drivers. Linux is mostly painless from that standpoint now a days and if anything goes wrong the mailing lists are reasonably helpful.
Moronic choice. Solaris is cool, but 10 years behind the Unix in OS X. The usability of Solaris is reserved for geeks like me. In the real world I much prefer OS X.
Way back, ZFS and GCD were the two technologies I was most excited about for Snow Leopard. I was bummed when the reports started to come out that ZFS wouldn't be going in.
The technical hurdles are beyond me, and so are the licensing issues. As someone with two e-sata towers with software RAID arrays humming at my feet - I certainly wish they could get it figured out.
The technical hurdles are beyond me, and so are the licensing issues. As someone with two e-sata towers with software RAID arrays humming at my feet - I certainly wish they could get it figured out.
Zfs
I bet Apple took a hard, long look at incorporating ZFS into the kernel and decided against it for technical reasons. Last I read (I believe it was an article on /.), ZFS was having performance problems and some of the design decisions in ZFS were found to be sub-optimal, or done much better in other up-and-coming filesystems like BTFS. The Sun buy-out by Oracle may have also played a role as well.
I guess HFS+ will live another 18 months.
EDIT: Here is the Slashdot link to an article written by an ex-ZFS developer
I bet Apple took a hard, long look at incorporating ZFS into the kernel and decided against it for technical reasons. Last I read (I believe it was an article on /.), ZFS was having performance problems and some of the design decisions in ZFS were found to be sub-optimal, or done much better in other up-and-coming filesystems like BTFS. The Sun buy-out by Oracle may have also played a role as well.
I guess HFS+ will live another 18 months.
EDIT: Here is the Slashdot link to an article written by an ex-ZFS developer
Your post seems to be based on nothing at all. Getting ZFS to work natively inside Linux as a first class filesystem wouldn't require nearly as much effort as getting Btrfs into a production-ready state. It is probably already done illegally somewhere just waiting for license issues to be resolved. Its working as a FUSE filesystem already too.
As for your idea of a Btrfs v2 that takes the best of Btrfs and ZFS.... thats silly. The end result / feature set may look the same but they are radically different implementation approaches. See http://lwn.net/Articles/342892/
Me too, but couldn't wait
BTW They killed my upgrade path when making SL Intel only. I run a G4 Mac Mini as a ZFS fileserver in 4x1TB RAID config now. Though experimental code, it runs very stable now for over 6 months. It's my time capsule on steroids ;P