Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

gnomeisland

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 30, 2008
1,105
837
New York, NY
Is it possible to read ZFS filesystems on 10.6 still? Or rather is there a way to enable it? I'm planning the backup routine for my FreeNAS server and trying to decide if I can format the backup drive in ZFS (mostly for the native compression and snapshots).

Most of the info I found Googling it was contradictory and out-dated. Thanks!
 
Apple used to have a ZFS project but they pulled it some while ago (might even be 2 or 3 years ago). That's why most of the info you find is outdated. There might be a FUSE port of ZFS so you can use it with MacFUSE but I haven't seen it. I think the original ZFS project from Apple is/was actually the only way of getting ZFS on the Mac.

As for backing up: move the data from the FreeNAS server elsewhere via the network. Then reformat the drives to ZFS (of whatever tickles your fancy) in the machine from the FreeNAS webinterface. No need to reformat those drives in other machine.

Edit: there seems to be a Google code project going on for ZFS on the Mac called MacZFS. Worth checking out.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.