ZFS:Main

ZFS is included in FreeBSD and several other operating systems and comes bundled with the supporting tools. This supplies a very large number of tools and toys for managing your disks and filesystems.

Included ZFS features:
(These features are baked into ZFS, but that does not mean that all of them are a good idea)

Disk Management - disk(s) assigned to ZFS pools do not need to be micromanaged by other tools
ZFS Managed Software Raid - stripe, mirror, or raidz (or, some combination/variation like Striped-Raidz)
Datasets - child filesystems of the pool, no special partitioning required.
Volumes - virtual disks created from raw storage of the pool, no special partitioning required
Transparent Compression - lz4, lzjb, gzip, gzip-[1-9], zle, or none (Pool version 5000, also called "feature flags" added lz4 to this list)
Dedup - Identical blocks are not stored more than once. VERY HIGH MEMORY COST, AND SPEED IS SACRIFICED, PLUS OTHER HAZARDS. NOT RECOMMENDED, but available.
Snapshots - read-only reference to a dataset or volume as of a specific moment in time
Cloning - replica of a dataset/volume created from a snapshot

ZFS Structural Elements:
vdev - structural elements that make up a pool
Pool - the nexus that presents the underlying storage devices
Dataset - a child filesystem of the pool
Volume - a child of the pool that acts as a virtual block device
Snapshot - a point-in-time reference to the state of a dataset or volume
Clone - a new dataset or volume that starts with a snapshot as its template

Further Reading/Links

Link		Source		Notes
FreeBSD zpool man page		freebsd.org		for creation, manipulation, and destruction of pools
FreeBSD zfs man page		freebsd.org		for creation, manipulation, and destruction of datasets, snapshots, clones, and volumes
FreeBSD zdb man page		freebsd.org		ZFS debugger - useful for checking pool and vdev parameters
FreeBSD ZFS wiki		freebsd.org
ZFS Tuning Guide		wiki.freebsd.org
ZFS Best Practices Guide		solarisinternals.com		Some is Solaris specific, but most is equally valid
ZFS snapshot, clone, volume		googlux.com
Dedup details		blogs.oracle.com		In case you're curious about dedup. Dedup is NOT recommended
Migrating ZFS pools		docs.huihoo.com
zfs copies=x		blogs.oracle.com
Moving ZFS pools		barbz.com.au
ZFS Compression - A Win-Win		blogs.oracle.com
Becoming a ZFS Ninja		blogs.oracle.com		(video)
ZFS Cheatsheet		lildude.co.uk
ZFS: Read Me 1st		nex7.blogspot.com
Fixing the 4k problem		blog.monsted.dk

Originally from zfs/main.txt · Last modified: 2014/09/04 06:49 by killermist  This is a copy, just in case.