4 ms·

Has anyone done an analysis of the number of logic bugs in ZFS and btrfs vs. memory safety or concurrent updates to memory, etc.? Also, I'll point out that App

Has anyone done an analysis of the number of logic bugs in ZFS and btrfs vs. memory safety or concurrent updates to memory, etc.? Also, I'll point out that Apple just dropped a new FS on millions of devices, with no issues... that was developed in 3 or 4 years. I'm still blown away that they pulled that off.

pas 9y ago
They have full control of that environment though. So they tested it on a few hundred devices, and by that exhausted all the possible configurations. And when all worked, they knew they have a pretty good indicator for successful deployment on all those millions of devices.
- dom0 9y ago
  It's also used only with their specific flash storage devices.
- bluejekyll 9y ago
  Why downplay it? It's an impressive feat, regardless of the differences in target devices. Even with the hardware configurations well known, the fact that it was done at such a large scale successfully means that even unusual edge conditions didn't crop up. This shouldn't be downplayed, it actually speaks to why it's important to have incremental stages of software delivery. First target highly constrained environments (iOS, Watch OS, tvOS), then work on the more difficult and less constrained general computing environment.
  - dom0 9y ago
    It's absolutely an impressive feat to pull this off. But it's not quite the same problem as building a robust general-purpose FS for a diverse ecosystem.
    - derefr 9y ago
      True; and yet, it feels like there is much low-hanging fruit left in filesystens that are just built for specific vertically-integrated use-cases. A NAS hardware-appliance company, for example, could likely pull off something similar to what Apple did, and to great benefit.
      - fulafel 9y ago
        NetApp have making good money with custom NAS boxes, complete with their own OS and filesystem, since 1993 or so.
      - laumars 9y ago
        This does already happen, albeit it often isn't advertised.
      - u02sgb 9y ago
        Or just use btrfs on top of software Linux raid like synology does.
cmurf 9y ago
I'm not. Not only is the hardware behavior completely knowable and deterministic, but the user is seriously limited in how much they directly affect either the hardware behavior or the filesystem. Meanwhile commodity hardware will accept a flush to disk command, and return true when it hasn't flushed it to disk. This is done for performance reasons. I also note that Apple deployed APFS by default only on the most locked down of the two OS's they produce: it's not the default file system on macOS where there's a much wider assortment of user intervention and hardware availability. And HFS+ had enough of its own issues, hence why it was being replaced, that it's entirely plausible the problems are fewer expressly because of the change in file systems. I imagine their intent and hope was exactly that or why bother?
ndc33 9y ago
i believe it also does not have as many features as btrfs etc

pas 9y ago

They have full control of that environment though. So they tested it on a few hundred devices, and by that exhausted all the possible configurations. And when all worked, they knew they have a pretty good indicator for successful deployment on all those millions of devices.

dom0 9y ago
It's also used only with their specific flash storage devices.
bluejekyll 9y ago
Why downplay it? It's an impressive feat, regardless of the differences in target devices. Even with the hardware configurations well known, the fact that it was done at such a large scale successfully means that even unusual edge conditions didn't crop up. This shouldn't be downplayed, it actually speaks to why it's important to have incremental stages of software delivery. First target highly constrained environments (iOS, Watch OS, tvOS), then work on the more difficult and less constrained general computing environment.
- dom0 9y ago
  It's absolutely an impressive feat to pull this off. But it's not quite the same problem as building a robust general-purpose FS for a diverse ecosystem.
  - derefr 9y ago
    True; and yet, it feels like there is much low-hanging fruit left in filesystens that are just built for specific vertically-integrated use-cases. A NAS hardware-appliance company, for example, could likely pull off something similar to what Apple did, and to great benefit.
    - fulafel 9y ago
      NetApp have making good money with custom NAS boxes, complete with their own OS and filesystem, since 1993 or so.
    - laumars 9y ago
      This does already happen, albeit it often isn't advertised.
    - u02sgb 9y ago
      Or just use btrfs on top of software Linux raid like synology does.

cmurf 9y ago

I'm not. Not only is the hardware behavior completely knowable and deterministic, but the user is seriously limited in how much they directly affect either the hardware behavior or the filesystem. Meanwhile commodity hardware will accept a flush to disk command, and return true when it hasn't flushed it to disk. This is done for performance reasons. I also note that Apple deployed APFS by default only on the most locked down of the two OS's they produce: it's not the default file system on macOS where there's a much wider assortment of user intervention and hardware availability. And HFS+ had enough of its own issues, hence why it was being replaced, that it's entirely plausible the problems are fewer expressly because of the change in file systems. I imagine their intent and hope was exactly that or why bother?

ndc33 9y ago

i believe it also does not have as many features as btrfs etc