From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Oct 22 15:38:51 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1032B1065679 for ; Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:38:51 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from fjwcash@gmail.com) Received: from smtp.sd73.bc.ca (smtp.sd73.bc.ca [142.24.13.140]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DC5368FC28 for ; Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:38:50 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from fjwcash@gmail.com) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by localhost.sd73.bc.ca (Postfix) with ESMTP id C89721A000B30 for ; Wed, 22 Oct 2008 08:38:49 -0700 (PDT) X-Virus-Scanned: Debian amavisd-new at smtp.sd73.bc.ca Received: from smtp.sd73.bc.ca ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.sd73.bc.ca [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id q68L1lhTC4qX for ; Wed, 22 Oct 2008 08:38:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from coal (s10.sbo [192.168.0.10]) by smtp.sd73.bc.ca (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4536C1A000B06 for ; Wed, 22 Oct 2008 08:38:46 -0700 (PDT) From: Freddie Cash To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 08:38:45 -0700 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.9 References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200810220838.45900.fjwcash@gmail.com> Subject: Re: ZFS X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:38:51 -0000 On October 22, 2008 04:27 am David Peall wrote: > While we are on the topic, I had a brief but happy encounter with ZFS > while dump was broken on UFS2. Is there any indication as to when this > would be suitable for a production environment? Do you mean when will people use it in a production environment, or when the experimental tag will be taken off? Those are two very different things. :) The experimental tag will probably be taken of somewhere in the 8.x lifetime, maybe 9.0 at the latest. That's my guess anyway. As for people using it in production environments, that's already happening. Personally, we use it in production for a remote backup box using ZFS and Rsync (64-bit FreeBSD 7-Stable from August, 2x dual-core Opteron 2200s, 8 GB DDR2 RAM, 24x 500 GB SATA disks attached to two 3Ware 9650/9550 controllers as single-disks). Works beautifully, backing up 80 FreeBSD and Debian Linux servers every night, creating snapshots with each run. Restoring files from an arbitrary day is as simple as navigating to the needed .zfs/snapshot/// and scping the file to wherever. And full system restores are as simple as "boot livecd, partition/format disks, run rsync". We're going to be adding a second identical backup box at a second remote location, and use the snapshot stream features to have redundant backups. We're also looking at using a similar box as a storage node for a virtual machine setup to create a disaster-recovery/fail-over site for all the systems in our main server room. And if that works, then we may use a similar setup to virtualise a bunch of the systems in the main server room. > Some of the tools build in to ZFS are very useful... Pretty much everything about ZFS is useful, except the name. :) Would have been better if they called it what it really is: the Zetabyte Storage Management System. It's so much more than just a lowly filesystem. Would probably solve a lot of confusion out there, IMO. -- Freddie Cash fjwcash@gmail.com