ZFS Kernel Panics with 32 and 64 bit versions of 8.3 and 9.0

[Simon]

So if you have a 50TB ZFS filesystem and your memory goes bad, even if ECC,
your entire 50TB is gonna go bunkers? disks fail, but memory doesn't? CPUs
don't fail?

There are many things in a server that can fail and cause corruption, but that
shouldn't take down entire zpool. I'm okay with a few missing files ending up
in lost+found, but entire filesystem? That renders the entire thing useless if you
ask me.

-Simon

On Sun, 6 May 2012 09:59:39 -0500 (CDT), Bob Friesenhahn wrote:

>On Sun, 6 May 2012, Simon wrote:

>>
>> Are you suggesting that if a disk sector goes bad or memory corrupts few blocks
>> of data, the entire zpool is gonna go bust? can the same occur with a ZRAID?
>> I thought the ZFS was designed to overcome all these issues to begin with. Is
>> this not the case?

>ZFS is designed to work with failing disks, but not failing memory. 
>It is recommended to use only systems with ECC memory.

>The OS itself (any OS!) is succeptible to crash/corruption due to 
>failing memory but without zfs's checksums, you might not be aware of 
>such corruptions or the crash might be more delayed.

>Bob
>-- 
>Bob Friesenhahn
>bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
>GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/