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This. They really need a newer, more modern filesystem, especially since Apple has done away with HFS+ and has introduced APFS. ReFS is really dead in the water

This. They really need a newer, more modern filesystem, especially since Apple has done away with HFS+ and has introduced APFS. ReFS is really dead in the water, and ZFS would give them a powerful, battle-tested filesystem which they could use as a real selling point for Windows Server. Also things such as Windows updates and system restore would benefit a lot from ZFS's native snapshotting capabilities. Merging DTrace implicitly means they are fine with both the CDDL and Oracle's patents, and thus that ZFS wouldn't be an issue for them.

vbernat 8y ago
DTrace has switched to GPL for the kernel part (see https://oss.oracle.com/projects/DTrace/ https://oss.oracle.com/projects/DTrace/).
- lallysingh 8y ago
  From that page, it looks like dtrace is GPL for the entire linux port.
  - ezannoni 8y ago
    Hi, Yes, it's GPL (and we got rid of the separate kernel module). The utils portion is UPL. It's available with new kernels (including 5.0) on github as well. https://github.com/oracle/dtrace-utils https://github.com/oracle/dtrace-utils https://github.com/oracle/libdtrace-ctf https://github.com/oracle/libdtrace-ctf https://github.com/ezannoni/dtrace-linux-kernel https://github.com/ezannoni/dtrace-linux-kernel We are working on a Fedora version of the kernel patches. We are also discussing with the BPF team (on netdev) how to provide DTrace functionality integrated with the Linux Kernel.
- simcop2387 8y ago
  Neat, I hadn't heard about that before. Wonder how much that will affect adoption in the linux world.
- hs86 8y ago
  They imported DTrace from FreeBSD which is still CDDL licensed.
fetbaffe 8y ago
Microsoft has already developt ReFS for this, however I don't know the adaption rate of ReFS on Windows servers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReFS
Neil44 8y ago
Adopting ZFS would take away from Storage Spaces, So sadly I don’t see it happening.
- delfinom 8y ago
  Storage Spaces would just build around ZFS?
  - Neil44 8y ago
    Theres just such duplication of functionality I don't see them bothering.
- qalmakka 8y ago
  What's the advantage of storage spaces compared with a software RAID solution such as ZFS's RAIDZ?
otterley 8y ago
NTFS is in some ways arguably still more advanced than ZFS: think reparse points, alternate streams, transactions, BitLocker integration, and shrinkable volumes, to name a few. Also, NTFS already has snapshots via Volume Shadow Copy. ZFS is great but it’s not going to be a viable replacement as it exists today.
- setquk 8y ago
  Not a lot of this matters in the real world. The real shame is the shitty small file performance due to MFT contention on NTFS.
  - otterley 8y ago
    It absolutely matters: a fair amount of software, both enterprise and consumer, already uses these features. Malware detection, for example, makes heavy use of reparse points.
    - blattimwind 8y ago
      Windows Update and Windows Installer use NTFS transactions.
      - setquk 8y ago
        From Microsoft's documentation: Microsoft strongly recommends developers utilize alternative means to achieve your application s needs. Many scenarios that TxF was developed for can be achieved through simpler and more readily available techniques. Furthermore, TxF may not be available in future versions of Microsoft Windows. For more information, and alternatives to TxF, please see Alternatives to using Transactional NTFS. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/fileio/about-transactional-ntfs https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/fileio/abou...
        mehrdadn 8y ago
        I'm pretty convinced that documentation is BS. I could be wrong I guess, but I honestly don't see them removing TxF anytime soon. They didn't exactly build their business on breaking backwards-compatibility of APIs.
fxfan 8y ago
Wait- how do you find NTFS underpowered? You make vague claims offering nothing of substance.
- Macha 8y ago
  My experience is that NTFS is quite slow compared to ext4 on my machine (both via Windows and via ntfs-3g). Particularly for operations around large numbers of small files like moving/deleting a .git directory.
  - j16sdiz 8y ago
    Core NTFS is fast. When you feel slow, it is the abstraction layers and plugable interfaces above it. - and they are API. Replacing the core won't help the performance. They need to remove some abstraction and break some application.
- qalmakka 8y ago
  NTFS holds up quite well when compared with more "traditional" filesystems such as XFS, ext4 and UFS (except the choppy I/O performance, but as someone else said above it might be more of an issue of the subsystems above it); it has much more functionality of almost anyone of those I mentioned above (for instance, I really don't understand why so few filesystems support transparent compression). I think that filesystems like ZFS and Btrfs are simply one step ahead than anything else, not only in features but also in tooling and UX. Send/receive, CoW snapshots, checksumming are all tremendous features that I think would fit fantastically into the Windows workflow, if Microsoft really managed to integrate them well. For instance, I think a ZFS-based Windows update would be able to do away with transactions and rely instead on datasets to snapshot the system, apply an update and rollback everything if something broke, exposing to power users the tools to clearly understand and rollback their systems themselves by hand. Obviously all of this can be achieved by rewriting everything from scratch as in house, specific platforms, but I just feel that continuing to replicate in NTFS/ReFS features other open and widely supported filesystems have had for almost a decade is just not the best way forward, and it's not really better for anyone.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
mixedCase 8y ago
bcachefs is profiling itself to finally up the Linux file system game. It doesn't look like it will be upstreamed this year, but it appears to be usable and it's being done by someone who really seems to understand file systems and knows of the trade-offs different FS have made and how they played out.
johannes1234321 8y ago
> Merging DTrace implicitly means they are fine with both the CDDL and Oracle's patents, and thus that ZFS wouldn't be an issue for them. Mind that DTrace was ported by Oracle (at least partially) to Oracle Linux first. They haven't done that for ZFS (instead they created bttrfs, before owning Sun)
Sylamore 8y ago
I wouldn't say that ReFS is dead in the water, I just think they shifted the focus to supporting virtualization features first to enable S2D/SDN. ReFS is still being developed and enhanced, the work is mostly in server SKU: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/refs/refs-overview https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/refs...

vbernat 8y ago

DTrace has switched to GPL for the kernel part (see https://oss.oracle.com/projects/DTrace/ https://oss.oracle.com/projects/DTrace/).

lallysingh 8y ago
From that page, it looks like dtrace is GPL for the entire linux port.
- ezannoni 8y ago
  Hi, Yes, it's GPL (and we got rid of the separate kernel module). The utils portion is UPL. It's available with new kernels (including 5.0) on github as well. https://github.com/oracle/dtrace-utils https://github.com/oracle/dtrace-utils https://github.com/oracle/libdtrace-ctf https://github.com/oracle/libdtrace-ctf https://github.com/ezannoni/dtrace-linux-kernel https://github.com/ezannoni/dtrace-linux-kernel We are working on a Fedora version of the kernel patches. We are also discussing with the BPF team (on netdev) how to provide DTrace functionality integrated with the Linux Kernel.
simcop2387 8y ago
Neat, I hadn't heard about that before. Wonder how much that will affect adoption in the linux world.
hs86 8y ago
They imported DTrace from FreeBSD which is still CDDL licensed.

fetbaffe 8y ago

Microsoft has already developt ReFS for this, however I don't know the adaption rate of ReFS on Windows servers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReFS

Neil44 8y ago

Adopting ZFS would take away from Storage Spaces, So sadly I don’t see it happening.

delfinom 8y ago
Storage Spaces would just build around ZFS?
- Neil44 8y ago
  Theres just such duplication of functionality I don't see them bothering.
qalmakka 8y ago
What's the advantage of storage spaces compared with a software RAID solution such as ZFS's RAIDZ?

otterley 8y ago

NTFS is in some ways arguably still more advanced than ZFS: think reparse points, alternate streams, transactions, BitLocker integration, and shrinkable volumes, to name a few. Also, NTFS already has snapshots via Volume Shadow Copy. ZFS is great but it’s not going to be a viable replacement as it exists today.

setquk 8y ago
Not a lot of this matters in the real world. The real shame is the shitty small file performance due to MFT contention on NTFS.
- otterley 8y ago
  It absolutely matters: a fair amount of software, both enterprise and consumer, already uses these features. Malware detection, for example, makes heavy use of reparse points.
  - blattimwind 8y ago
    Windows Update and Windows Installer use NTFS transactions.
    - setquk 8y ago
      From Microsoft's documentation: Microsoft strongly recommends developers utilize alternative means to achieve your application s needs. Many scenarios that TxF was developed for can be achieved through simpler and more readily available techniques. Furthermore, TxF may not be available in future versions of Microsoft Windows. For more information, and alternatives to TxF, please see Alternatives to using Transactional NTFS. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/fileio/about-transactional-ntfs https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/fileio/abou...
      - mehrdadn 8y ago
        I'm pretty convinced that documentation is BS. I could be wrong I guess, but I honestly don't see them removing TxF anytime soon. They didn't exactly build their business on breaking backwards-compatibility of APIs.

fxfan 8y ago

Wait- how do you find NTFS underpowered? You make vague claims offering nothing of substance.

Macha 8y ago
My experience is that NTFS is quite slow compared to ext4 on my machine (both via Windows and via ntfs-3g). Particularly for operations around large numbers of small files like moving/deleting a .git directory.
- j16sdiz 8y ago
  Core NTFS is fast. When you feel slow, it is the abstraction layers and plugable interfaces above it. - and they are API. Replacing the core won't help the performance. They need to remove some abstraction and break some application.
qalmakka 8y ago
NTFS holds up quite well when compared with more "traditional" filesystems such as XFS, ext4 and UFS (except the choppy I/O performance, but as someone else said above it might be more of an issue of the subsystems above it); it has much more functionality of almost anyone of those I mentioned above (for instance, I really don't understand why so few filesystems support transparent compression). I think that filesystems like ZFS and Btrfs are simply one step ahead than anything else, not only in features but also in tooling and UX. Send/receive, CoW snapshots, checksumming are all tremendous features that I think would fit fantastically into the Windows workflow, if Microsoft really managed to integrate them well. For instance, I think a ZFS-based Windows update would be able to do away with transactions and rely instead on datasets to snapshot the system, apply an update and rollback everything if something broke, exposing to power users the tools to clearly understand and rollback their systems themselves by hand. Obviously all of this can be achieved by rewriting everything from scratch as in house, specific platforms, but I just feel that continuing to replicate in NTFS/ReFS features other open and widely supported filesystems have had for almost a decade is just not the best way forward, and it's not really better for anyone.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

mixedCase 8y ago

bcachefs is profiling itself to finally up the Linux file system game. It doesn't look like it will be upstreamed this year, but it appears to be usable and it's being done by someone who really seems to understand file systems and knows of the trade-offs different FS have made and how they played out.

johannes1234321 8y ago

> Merging DTrace implicitly means they are fine with both the CDDL and Oracle's patents, and thus that ZFS wouldn't be an issue for them. Mind that DTrace was ported by Oracle (at least partially) to Oracle Linux first. They haven't done that for ZFS (instead they created bttrfs, before owning Sun)

Sylamore 8y ago

I wouldn't say that ReFS is dead in the water, I just think they shifted the focus to supporting virtualization features first to enable S2D/SDN. ReFS is still being developed and enhanced, the work is mostly in server SKU: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/refs/refs-overview https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/refs...