From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Dec 1 15:59:12 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 642E91065670 for ; Mon, 1 Dec 2008 15:59:12 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kirk@strauser.com) Received: from kanga.honeypot.net (kanga.honeypot.net [IPv6:2001:470:a80a:1:21f:d0ff:fe22:b8a8]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1A4438FC08 for ; Mon, 1 Dec 2008 15:59:11 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kirk@strauser.com) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by kanga.honeypot.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2668C33C57 for ; Mon, 1 Dec 2008 09:59:11 -0600 (CST) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at honeypot.net Received: from kanga.honeypot.net ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (kanga.honeypot.net [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id sLs6O0KiLSlG for ; Mon, 1 Dec 2008 09:59:09 -0600 (CST) Received: from athena.localnet (athena.daycos.com [IPv6:2001:470:c054:1:221:9bff:fe00:de3f]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by kanga.honeypot.net (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id DC78E33C50 for ; Mon, 1 Dec 2008 09:59:08 -0600 (CST) From: Kirk Strauser To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 09:59:15 -0600 User-Agent: KMail/1.10.1 (Linux/2.6.27-7-generic; KDE/4.1.2; x86_64; ; ) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200812010959.15647.kirk@strauser.com> Subject: Disenchanted with ZFS; alternatives? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:59:12 -0000 I have ZFS on my 7.1-PRERELEASE system, and while it does some spiffy things, in general I'm a bit underwhelmed. PROS: Adding new filesystems on a whim is really nice. It has a lot of really cool other features that I will probably never need. CONS: I have nearly 3GB of wired RAM, but it doesn't seem to be all that fast. For example, starting an Amanda backup on a UFS2 filesystem would get through the "estimate" phase almost instantly on a system that had been up for several days because of cached filesystem data. On ZFS, it still limps along even if I just finished the last backup a few minutes earlier. Other than saying "I'm using ZFS", I don't seem to have much to show for it. WTF: "Raidz and top-level vdevs cannot be removed from a pool." At this point, I'm almost ready to go back to good ol' UFS2, but I'd hate to give up that easy addition of new filesystems. I *could* have a single 700GB root FS but that just doesn't seem right. Are there any good, tested GEOM- based ways of getting that functionality, perhaps along the lines of using something like gvirstor and growfs as needed? - Kirk