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Date:      Tue, 2 Dec 2008 22:37:50 +0100
From:      Albert Shih <Albert.Shih@obspm.fr>
To:        Kirk Strauser <kirk@strauser.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Disenchanted with ZFS; alternatives?
Message-ID:  <20081202213750.GA58666@obspm.fr>
In-Reply-To: <200812010959.15647.kirk@strauser.com>
References:  <200812010959.15647.kirk@strauser.com>

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 Le 01/12/2008 à 09:59:15-0600, Kirk Strauser a écrit
> 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?

Maybe my message is little in the wrong mailing-list....

I'm have choosing ZFS....under Solaris because for some special purpose I
need a big space (~30To). So I've two Sun X4500 with Solaris x86-64

After one year I can say ZFS is fantastic file system for (IMHO) those
reason :

	Don't have fsck (for 30To is very very useful)

	Snapshots is instantly make.

	You can put any number files in on directory (of course depend you
	context but it's useful for me)

	Very very rock solid.

For the last item, I can say that because they are «big» bug in the kernel
of Solaris when I start to using it. The effect is the server ... reboot
when it's heavy load on SATA controller. So I've many reboot (~30) in very
short time. Event that I never lost any bits of information on my FS.

To come back to FreeBSD, I'm using FreeBSD since > 10 years, UFS is very
slow, and when UFS2 is release I'm very happy to switch to UFS2. 

Now FreeBSD have ZFS, and I'm using it in....my scracth because I don't
really need ZFS on my server when they are ~ 100-1024Go disk. I'm using ZFS
only on my personnal computer (more because to  make test and send bug
reports than because I'm really use ZFS)

Of course when ZFS is fully integrated and very solid under FreeBSD, I'm
going to very happy and use it. But at this moment for production and for
«small» FS I'm not really need ZFS.

I think ZFS become indispensable when the FS continue to growing ... a fsck
on > 4 To is very very long. 

When ZFS is stable 

	ZFS >> UFS2 >> ext3 > UFS1

at this moment

	UFS2 >> ZFS > ext3 > UFS1

Regards.

-- 
Albert SHIH
SIO batiment 15
Observatoire de Paris Meudon
5 Place Jules Janssen
92195 Meudon Cedex
Téléphone : 01 45 07 76 26
Heure local/Local time:
Mar 2 déc 2008 22:25:20 CET



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