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ZFS in Latest Leopard Builds [Update]

Several sites are reporting on ZFS support that is now built into the latest build of Mac OS X (Leopard) which was seeded last week.

The ZFS team at Sun was contacted by Apple in April about porting ZFS to Mac OS X. Arstechnica previously discussed advantages of ZFS as a file system. These include

- Efficient storage and handling of very small files.
- Logical volume management through a pooled storage model. (Example/Description)
- Improved data integrity using checksums on all data.
- Snapshots

Mac4Ever first posted a screenshot of the ZFS formatting option now in Leopard:



More information on ZFS is available at the ZFS homepage and Wikipedia.

Update: While ZFS support appears to be preliminarily in the newest Leopard builds, if you try to format a disk image using ZFS, the formatting will not complete. This is a known bug.

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67 months ago
Could this mean revolutionary things ahead for the next OS? Perhaps better integration with new hardware?
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
67 months ago
So will ZFS just be supported by Leopard, or will the entire file system be based off this?

I remember reading that article on Arstechnica and the idea of Time Machine with ZFS sounded pretty interesting.
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67 months ago
Cool! I love ZFS!
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67 months ago
ZFS makes me a little bit horny. Just a bit. First filesystem to do that since BFS, actually.

OH NO I'M CHEATING ON MY FIRST FILESYSTEM LOVE! :eek:
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
67 months ago
wtf? i hav absolutely no idea what it is, but it sounds cool... YAY!
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67 months ago
HFS is getting tired, you can tell by the number of names they have tacked onto the end (HFS+ Journaled)!
Bring on ZFS, it makes sense with Time machine
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
67 months ago

Bring on ZFS, it makes sense with Time machine


If they actually use its built-in diff/snapshot ability for Time Machine instead of the ugly hack onto HFS+ we saw as of the original dev preview, I might have to go offer my body up to any of Apple's filesystem developers.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
67 months ago
For us poor plebeians, what the hell does the adoption of ZFS bring anyway? Is it just another geeky filesystem, or something that might really make a difference for ordinary users?

At least HFS enabled much bigger storage and more sensible partitioning back then...could any of you clarify this issue for the non-file server admins out there? Thanks.
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67 months ago
Awesome. The idea of being able to use ZFS in OSX was quite exciting to me when I first read the rumors before. Especially the "pooled storage" method. I assume this would be the end of one's home folder being full because the drive it resides on is full, since an additional drive added to the machine would just add to the shared pool for storage. The home folder would no longer be limited to a single device. That and the redundancy and backup features.

Ars Technica has suggested that this would be required for Time Machine to function, but isn't Time Machine already included in the developer's previews?
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67 months ago

For us poor plebeians, what the hell does the adoption ZFS bring anyway? Is it just another geeky filesystem, or something that might really make a difference for ordinary users?

At least HFS enabled much bigger storage and more sensible partitioning back then...could any of you clarify this issue for the non-file server admins out there? Thanks.



The Zettabyte file system is 128-bit for one.
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