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ZFS In Leopard

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Apr 12, 2001
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According to a MacRumors developer source, ZFS has been added to the list of file systems in the vnode.h header file in Mac OS 10.5 Leopard, which could indicate preliminary support for the file system. Apple had contacted Sun earlier this year about the possibility of porting ZFS to Mac OS X.

Due to ZFS's high redundancy features, some in the technical community had wondered whether Leopard's Time Machine was simply a front end to a ZFS implementation in Leopard. At this point, it appears as though Apple is still using HFS+ as its default file system. ArsTechnica presents a decent up-to-date summary of ZFS and how it may impact Mac users.

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Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2006/08/25/zfs-in-leopard/
zfs and vnode.h

This may be under nda so lets just say that vnode.h in the Leopard Dev Tools does not NOT contain zfs.

I'll also say that it probably doesn't appear that it's actually implemented anywhere yet.

Is that cryptic enough?

As Apple says about ZFS support,.. they can't comment on unannounced product releases.
Apple has two catch phrases for feedback.* "We'll take that under consideration" which translates to.. OK, enough, we're moving on.
The other catch phrase is 'we can't comment on unannounced products'.* I'll leave that translation to your imagination.
 
mmm, new file system

Talk about leap-frogging vista (in which a new file system was supposed to be a big new feature, and was scrapped).
 
It's only a header file. It has no real bearing on anything other than to keep a place for the file system definition.

Apple has had plenty of time to integrate UFS2 but it hasn't done that either. It's certainly possible that both could be in there with a new FreeBSD kernel but that's yet to be seen.

I suspect the top secret features may include these but I wouldn't bet on anything working out.
 
vouder17 said:
Can we have screen shots!!!

Ok it is a joke...lets see the reactions
Click to expand...
Preferrably blurry elevator ones?:p

Seriously, this would be great. I did some basic reading on ZFS and I must say, I really think it's a nice file system.
 
I like that idea of snapshots in ZFS though. If that isn't part of Leopard's Time Machine, maybe in a future release?
 
When I saw the demo of Time Machine, all I could think of is what kind of interface the same set of basic requirements would have produced if created by Microsoft instead of Apple. I pictured some sort of File Recovery Wizard, replete[sic] with date-picker widgets and multiple "Browse..." buttons to select target and destination folders. The five-step process would end by clicking a button named "Finish." There may or may not be an animated cartoon dog.
Click to expand...

I found this coment amusing, as I was thinking the exact same thing when I watched the keynote, word-for-word almost. :rolleyes:
 
ZFS? what?!

On an average consumer point of view, what advantages does it bring to macOS?:confused:
 
Zfs

Linito said:
On an average consumer point of view, what advantages does it bring to macOS?:confused:
Click to expand...

The greatest advantage would be faster location, retrieval, and
search of and within files, and minimal permission repairs to
OS. These alone would make a dramatic improvement.
 
This would be very nice indeed. Hop this is one of the features they can't talk about yet :).
 
I've not read up much on the advantages of zfs yet. I wonder if Apple might consider it for the ipod instead of fat32 if there are worthwhile advantages to it with such a device. I don't recall for certain but doesn't Apple have to pay a licensing fee now to use fat32? Of course to do this if it was considered feasible, there would need to be a way for Windows to access zfs as well.

Yeah I know it sounds way out there but figured I'd pose the question to see what some might think of it.
 
Cappy said:
I've not read up much on the advantages of zfs yet. I wonder if Apple might consider it for the ipod instead of fat32 if there are worthwhile advantages to it with such a device.
Click to expand...


Yah and kill off ALL iPod sales to PC users. Windows can't read ZFS which is the main reason why Apple is still going FAT32. In terms of compatability it the FS of choice.
 
Cappy said:
Of course to do this if it was considered feasible, there would need to be a way for Windows to access zfs as well.
Click to expand...

Well, that's the key reason they use FAT32 now. (Well, *my* iPod is MacHFS+.... ;) ). That became the default standard for flash devices and so on because every OS supports it. My understanding is that MS owns patents on some aspects of FAT32 but doesn't charge users at this point? I'm not sure if that's correct, though.

In any event, there doesn't seem to be a huge pressing need to change the filesystem on the iPod. But who knows what will happen eventually?

For now, though, there's no evidence that anyone is working on ZFS for Windows, sadly, AFAIK.
 
SiliconAddict said:
Yah and kill off ALL iPod sales to PC users. Windows can't read ZFS which is the main reason why Apple is still going FAT32. In terms of compatability it the FS of choice.
Click to expand...

I remember when Ipod was Mac only. One of the main reasons why I switched in 2002.

Since I see this as a battle of good (Apple) vs evil (MS).
Apple SHOULD make it Apple only.

But, Steve has lost his call in life. He now wants to have biljons of dollars instead of saving the world from Viruses and Windows.

Windows = Supports Evil

ZFS is a great step forward.

When I use my PC as a NNTP downloader and downloads 70+gig of data per day: I have to defrag the disk EVERYDAY.
NTFS SUX. It is so bad!
 
Linito said:
On an average consumer point of view, what advantages does it bring to macOS?:confused:
Click to expand...

You just plug in a new disk drive and then you see either
(1) more space, not another drive icon. Or...
(2) greater redundancy
(3) You have a hot spare

You would also have the time machine effect but without the need to do a copy operation. ZFS uses "copy on write" so it is very fine gr ained you could undo any change you ever made.
 
SiliconAddict said:
Yah and kill off ALL iPod sales to PC users. Windows can't read ZFS which is the main reason why Apple is still going FAT32. In terms of compatability it the FS of choice.
Click to expand...

Amazing...you grab the first part of my post to quote without including the part where I go on to say that there would need to be a way for Windows to access it. Talk about taking things out of context. :rolleyes:
 
dansgil said:
Can OS X (and OS 8/9) currently read ZFS formatted drives?
Click to expand...

No. ZFS isn't in any Apple operating system yet and since it's about 5-7 years newer than Mac OS 8 and 9, it would have been difficult for Apple to add technology that hadn't been developed yet. :) They're good, but not that good.
 
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