I wanted ZFS ...

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
... I wanted ZFS at least in Leopard Server ...



cool stuff at WWDC...
«13

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 59
    I don't see it as a huge deal. Yeah, ZFS is nice, but I'm happy with Time Machine if it shakes out well. My filesystem isn't stopping me from getting big HDDs, so I'm fine with that.



    Also, don't forget that some features (a few dev features, and a lot of consumer features) are still secret. We'll see more dev features in future builds (which have a bad habit of showing up on Bittorrent, not that I condone that at all), and MWSF is where they'll hype the consumer gizmos beyond what they showed. I see a late February release, just ahead of a Vista release, or possibly released at MWSF.
  • Reply 2 of 59
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    It's a bit early for that. Apple would need more time to implement ZFS. If all goes well perhaps 10.6 will offer it as an option. Depends on how Apple's interest remains.
  • Reply 3 of 59
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    The existence of Time Machine should be able to be everything that ZFS could without slowing down disk performance.
  • Reply 4 of 59
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ZachPruckowski


    Also, don't forget that some features (a few dev features, and a lot of consumer features) are still secret.



    "Time Machine" Apple said if your hard drive fails, Time machine will be able to get back all of your data. How is that possible? Is it possible this is somehow related to ZFS?? Also how would it be possible to have a 128bit file system with 32bit and 64bit systems?
  • Reply 5 of 59
    meelashmeelash Posts: 1,045member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland


    "Time Machine" Apple said if your hard drive fails, Time machine will be able to get back all of your data. How is that possible? Is it possible this is somehow related to that this is somehow related to ZFS?? Also how would it be possible to have a 128bit file system with 32bit and 64bit systems?



    Yup, there's lots of questions regarding how Time Machine "actually" works. Questions that, in my mind, will make or break it as something I'm actually going to use.
  • Reply 6 of 59
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ireland


    "Time Machine" Apple said if your hard drive fails, Time machine will be able to get back all of your data. How is that possible?



    Pssst. You back up to *another* drive.



    Quote:

    Is it possible this is somehow related to that this is somehow related to ZFS?? Also how would it be possible to have a 128bit file system with 32bit and 64bit systems?



    Oy. You might wanna get your flame-retardant jammies on before others see this...



    In short: 'Bit-ness' in one realm (CPU addressing space) has nothing to do with 'bit-ness' in another realm (internal implementation of a file system mapping approach).
  • Reply 7 of 59
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by meelash


    Yup, there's lots of questions regarding how Time Machine "actually" works. Questions that, in my mind, will make or break it as something I'm actually going to use.



    My guess is that it's a slick layer over rsync + hard links. They already ship with every Mac, and make this really easy on the bottom end.
  • Reply 8 of 59
    rongoldrongold Posts: 302member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kickaha


    My guess is that it's a slick layer over rsync + hard links. They already ship with every Mac, and make this really easy on the bottom end.



    'Course, it could also rely on ZFS based on the information we have covering a similar technology (that being Spotlight) and on what that technology will be capable of doing. This is just speculation on my part though - but it certainly is possible.
  • Reply 9 of 59
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Hmm. True. That would be interesting... ZFS for a dedicated backup solution only - would certainly let them hammer out working with ZFS in the real world.



    Hmmmmmmm....



    Interesting idea, but gut says rsync/hard links. I'm curious to see how they do it, in any case.



    (Just please, don't let it be a closed database file ala Retrospect... bleah.)
  • Reply 10 of 59
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kickaha


    My guess is that it's a slick layer over rsync + hard links. They already ship with every Mac, and make this really easy on the bottom end.



    I don't think so. I think they may be using a very slick implementation of Subversion. For those of you who do not know, Subversion is a versioning software that keeps track of who changed what, and when (very simplified explanation of a very complex product).



    Time Machine reeks of Subversion: which is a very good thing.
  • Reply 11 of 59
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kickaha


    Oy. You might wanna get your flame-retardant jammies on before others see this...



    In short: 'Bit-ness' in one realm (CPU addressing space) has nothing to do with 'bit-ness' in another realm (internal implementation of a file system mapping approach).



    Couldn't care less 'bout what others think, I prefer to learn, I'm no geek!



    Could we still see ZFS in Leopard?
  • Reply 12 of 59
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    What does ZFS do so awesomely again?
  • Reply 13 of 59
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mike Eggleston


    I don't think so. I think they may be using a very slick implementation of Subversion. For those of you who do not know, Subversion is a versioning software that keeps track of who changed what, and when (very simplified explanation of a very complex product).



    Time Machine reeks of Subversion: which is a very good thing.



    Except that's really dumbing down svn horribly, IMO. Why toss in a really rich versioning system with all the overhead when you could just make it 'yet another volume' and use all your existing tools? Flipping back through time would be as simple as 'show me the next fileset' and have it open another directory on the disk, directly. Recover is then just a Finder copy.



    I lurves svn, I use it daily - it just seems like it'd be using a 16-lb sledge to drive a finishing nail.
  • Reply 14 of 59
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Placebo


    What does ZFS do so awesomely again?



    Quote from wikipedia: ZFS is a 128-bit file system, which means it can store 18 billion billion (18 quintillion) times more data than current 64-bit systems. The limitations of ZFS are designed to be so large that they will never be encountered in practice. Project leader Bonwick said, "Populating 128-bit file systems would exceed the quantum limits of earth-based storage. You couldn't fill a 128-bit storage pool without boiling the oceans."
  • Reply 15 of 59
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Well, I can definitely see where this is useful to you the average computer user.
  • Reply 16 of 59
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kickaha


    Except that's really dumbing down svn horribly, IMO. Why toss in a really rich versioning system with all the overhead when you could just make it 'yet another volume' and use all your existing tools? Flipping back through time would be as simple as 'show me the next fileset' and have it open another directory on the disk, directly. Recover is then just a Finder copy.



    I lurves svn, I use it daily - it just seems like it'd be using a 16-lb sledge to drive a finishing nail.



    Not at all, I think it's the most efficient way of recovering changes. After being introduced to CVS etc I've actually wondered at times why versioning was never introduced in the system level. I hate having to always keep multiple copies of projects and now I don't have to. It's taking Aperture's non-destructive editing to a whole new level.



    The only issue I see with it is bloat. My HD is already quite full and I'd hate for the OS to be adding GBs more to keep track of changes to files I don't need to track. It's a dilemma because I don't want to manually choose which files to track or I never will, thus making the feature redundant and I don't want it to track all my files and waste space.



    Maybe I'll just need a bigger HD. Of course if they took out some bloat then I might not need it.
  • Reply 17 of 59
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by meelash


    Yup, there's lots of questions regarding how Time Machine "actually" works. Questions that, in my mind, will make or break it as something I'm actually going to use.



    the way i read that is "ooohhh if its the wrong colour or looks a bit funny at me in the wrong light... *I* wont be backing up!...oh no!!"



    well, it made me laugh
  • Reply 18 of 59
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin


    The only issue I see with it is bloat. My HD is already quite full and I'd hate for the OS to be adding GBs more to keep track of changes to files I don't need to track. It's a dilemma because I don't want to manually choose which files to track or I never will, thus making the feature redundant and I don't want it to track all my files and waste space.



    Maybe I'll just need a bigger HD. Of course if they took out some bloat then I might not need it.



    The way I understand it is if you have a NAS or external HD, you can configure those to do the Time Machine with. I have a separate server (a Linux based one) which I have locally connected, that is basically my NAS. I think that a lot of people have some similar setups (extra Macs, an old Windows setup, etc.). Heck, even some of the External HDs out there are starting to sport NAS capabilities.
  • Reply 19 of 59
    shadowshadow Posts: 373member
    Someone who has Leopard: go to Spotlight and search for ZFS. Got something?
  • Reply 20 of 59
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by shadow


    Someone who has Leopard: go to Spotlight and search for ZFS. Got something?



    Yes. There is no file system bundle for it, nor is there a mount utility or any other one (no fsck, now newfs, etc.). There is, however, a changed vnode.h:

    Code:


    enum vtagtype{

    VT_NON, VT_UFS, VT_NFS, VT_MFS, VT_MSDOSFS, VT_LFS, VT_LOFS, VT_FDESC,

    VT_PORTAL, VT_NULL, VT_UMAP, VT_KERNFS, VT_PROCFS, VT_AFS, VT_ISOFS,

    VT_UNION, VT_HFS, VT_ZFS, VT_DEVFS, VT_WEBDAV, VT_UDF, VT_AFP,

    VT_CDDA, VT_CIFS,VT_OTHER};



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