FreeBSD & Software RAID

[Gary Gatten]

Why avoid ZFS on x86?

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Kirk Strauser
Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2009 12:39 PM
To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
Subject: Re: FreeBSD & Software RAID

On Monday 25 May 2009 08:57:48 am Howard Jones wrote:

> I'm was half-considering switching to ZFS, but the most positive thing
I
> could find written about that (as implemented on FreeBSD) is that it
> "doesn't crash that much", so perhaps not. That was from a while ago
> though.

Wojciech hates it for some reason, but I wouldn't let that deter you.
I'm 
using ZFS on several production machines now and it's been beautifully
solid 
the whole time.  It has several huge advantages over UFS:

  - Filesystem sizes are dynamic.  They all grow and shrink inside the
same 
pool, so you don't have to worry about making one too large or too
small.

  - You can sort of think of a ZFS filesystem as a directory with a set
of 
configurable, inheritable attributes.  Set your /usr/ports to use
compression, 
and tell /home to keep two copies of everything for safety's sake.

  - Snapshots aren't painful.

It's been 100% reliable on every amd64 machine I've put it on (but avoid
it on 
x86!).  7-STABLE hasn't required any tuning since February or so.

UFS and gstripe/gmirror/graid* are good, but ZFS has spoiled me and I
won't be 
going back.
-- 
Kirk Strauser
_______________________________________________
freebsd-questions at freebsd.org mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to
"freebsd-questions-unsubscribe at freebsd.org"





<font size="1">
<div style='border:none;border-bottom:double windowtext 2.25pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>
</div>
"This email is intended to be reviewed by only the intended recipient
 and may contain information that is privileged and/or confidential.
 If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that
 any review, use, dissemination, disclosure or copying of this email
 and its attachments, if any, is strictly prohibited.  If you have
 received this email in error, please immediately notify the sender by
 return email and delete this email from your system."
</font>