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ZFS for Mac Snow Leopard

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ZFS is coming to OS X 10.6!! ZDNET: ZFS finally comes to Snow Leopard

I have a couple of questions per XFS for Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

I know that its a file system that was developed by Sun.
Q 1: Will it completely replace the current file system in Mac OS X
Q 2: Which File System is currently used it Mac OS X?

Q 3:On top of its current bonuses, will it speed up the overall everything about navigating, opening, and transferring files?

No more volumes
Every time you add a disk to your Mac you see another disk icon on the desktop. If you want to RAID some disks you use Disk Utility (or something) to create the volume. Slow, error-prone, confusing.

ZFS eliminates the whole volume concept. Add a disk or five to your system and it joins your storage pool. More capacity. Not more management.
Q 4: What does that mean, because I cannot wrap my head around it, and what does it mean to the average user?



Q 5: (Most important) Is this only for OS X Server? And if it is for Retail, will it be of much use to consumers?
 
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Here's what I know

Q1 yes - well at least on the server at the mo - with possible optional inclusion in the desktop version

Q2 The mac currently uses HFS+, which is over 10 years old

Q3 - wait and see, Snow Leopard itself is advertised as being quicker, as for the filesystem, it it tuned for Data integrity, not speed

Q4 - it means that you should no longer get a disk that suddenly dies on you that was fine up to that point. Also adding extra disks will just pool in to one storage volume, you will have one disk

Q5 who knows

It does mean that Apple are again a step ahead of Microsoft, whose modern filesystem never made it in to Vista. But this time Apple have gone for a technology from Sun - why invent the wheel twice.

As Jobs has said, he it focused on where the Puck it heading, not where it is
 
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thats big news that apple servers are now going to run ZFS. This will send shockwaves through the storage industry especially the data recovery business were HFS+ is already a nightmare to handle. As for the average user ZFS seems more stable than HFS+.
 
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About question 4. Say one of your external disks has an error and isn't working so well or dies, will it automatically eject itself from the pool of GB. Or what? And how will we even know if a drive is not a-ok in this file system?

Also is the new hard drives GB of space added and subtracted sequentially or on some other out of sequence order? And if you add a really large file to the pool of GB will it only copy it if there is enough space free on one HD or will it spread parts of it over multiple HD's?

And lastly, in this new system, can you pick which hard drive to copy something to? Or is it just all treated as one large pool of GB and where it's placed is up to the computer?
 
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About question 4. Say one of your external disks has an error and isn't working so well or dies, will it automatically eject itself from the pool of GB. Or what? And how will we even know if a drive is not a-ok in this file system?

Also is the new hard drives GB of space added and subtracted sequentially or on some other out of sequence order? And if you add a really large file to the pool of GB will it only copy it if there is enough space free on one HD or will it spread parts of it over multiple HD's?

And lastly, in this new system, can you pick which hard drive to copy something to? Or is it just all treated as one large pool of GB and where it's placed is up to the computer?
you can define your virtual devices by partition, drive, etc using zpools. if they're pulling ZFS in it's entirety I see no reason why you could not still. THe big advantage is it's a 128bit filesystem. So long 64bit limitations.
 
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kmkl
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what kind of advantage does 128 bit over 64 have?

n00b:p
 
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Way... way too many specs to list.
Space limitations. 128bit storage can store 18.4 × 10^18 more storage than a 64bit system can. Not a huge deal you (plural) say? Well, at one point (and not so long ago actually) in time a 40mb hard drive was HUGE
 
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dumb Question but what happens to Time Machine in regards to Laptop's hooking up to external hard drive's and even the time capsule? and Memory
cards form cameras Ipods and USB Sticks?
 
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Do current leopard users have to buy this or is it just a software update?
 
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dumb Question but what happens to Time Machine in regards to Laptop's hooking up to external hard drive's and even the time capsule? and Memory
cards form cameras Ipods and USB Sticks?
I'd guess it could prompt you "add this to storage pool?", but that would get old fast...

So it's probably a manual thing you add it its a USB device, and something it offers automatically if it's an internal drive.
 
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kmkl
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Do current leopard users have to buy this or is it just a software update?

Unknown.

Some believe SnowLeopard may be a free upgrade for Leopard users, just as 10.0 to 10.1 was.
Reasons may be because it's an update on stability. and the name has Leopard in front of it.

Some believe it may be ~$20.

Some believe it may be a whole new operating system.
 

rman


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Q 4: What does that mean, because I cannot wrap my head around it, and what does it mean to the average user?

For a better understanding of zfs
 
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This is exciting news. I look forward to when zfs is the only file system.
 

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