wikiZFS file system
Here you will find general information on the ZFS file system from Oracle (Sun Microsystems formerly). "Z" in ZFS does not stand for Zettabyte, as often presumed, but for the last letter in the alphabet. The developers speak from the "Last Word in File Systems"[1].
Approach
ZFS was written in 2000 by Jeff Bonwick and Bill Moore. The 128-bit file system claims to be a flexible file system that solves problems referring to data storage nowadays and in the future.
The issue of creeping data corruption is a particularly serious problem when it comes to the secure storage of data.[2][3].
Practical advantages of ZFS
- When a hard drive in a RAID array fails, only the occupied data is rebuilt. Not the entire hard drive. This reduces the rebuild-time and the probability of another failure
- ZFS guarantees that a successfully delivered block is delivered exactly as specified, like it was stored xx years ago.
- A pool can be replaced by larger hard disks step by step and the whole capacity of the disk can be used anyways.
- Hard drives can be physically connected to another system, even in a different order, and as long as the ZFS version on the target system is greater than or equal to the source system, all data, ACLs, snapshots, etc. can be used after import
- ZFS needs for the creation of a 200TB pool only a few minutes. There is no init required.
Pool setup and information on caching
As NexentaStor uses ZFS as its base, the following article can be taken into consideration:
NexentaStor general information
More information
Videos
- German lecture about ZFS at the university of Passau by Constantin Gonzales
- Don't scream at your Disks!
References
Author: Florian Hettenbach
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Translator: Alina Ranzinger Alina has been working at Thomas-Krenn.AG since 2024. After her training as multilingual business assistant, she got her job as assistant of the Product Management and is responsible for the translation of texts and for the organisation of the department.
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