ZFS practical application?

[Noah Pratt]

On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 3:40 PM, Ed Flecko <edflecko at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
> I've been reading about the ZFS file system, and I'm having a hard
> time understanding maybe the most practical business application(s)?
>
> I think I understand a little bit about it (from a conceptual
> perspective) that it's a self-healing 128 bit filesystem, better data
> integrity checking, etc.
>
> I have a small business (< 50 end users) and I'm wondering perhaps
> some examples that you might think would be most applicable for a
> FreeBSD server(s) and the ZFS filesystem?
>
> One of the things that seems like might be a detriment as well as an
> asset, is it's ability to expand as necessary, but then I'm wondering
> what prevents the filesystem from just "running away"?
>
> Are there any sites out there with perhaps a more laymen's explanation of ZFS?
>
> Comments?
>
> Thank you,
> Ed


ZFS filesystems can grow automatically within the space allocated to
the pool, but you control the pool. You also get fine-grained control
via quotas. Sun's docs are a good starting point:
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-5461/gbcik

Also read the parts about snapshots and zfs send:
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-5461/gavvx

What are your users running? Here's one of my favorites:
http://blogs.sun.com/GregB/entry/using_zfs_to_protect_ntfs


-Noah