4 ms·

Serious question.. does no one use SmartOS[1] for this? I wouldn't feel entirely secure running ZFS on Linux when I could just as easily run SmartOS and get the

Serious question.. does no one use SmartOS[1] for this? I wouldn't feel entirely secure running ZFS on Linux when I could just as easily run SmartOS and get the "real" ZFS. [1] http://smartos.org/ http://smartos.org/

zdw 14y ago
I run OpenIndiana (and OpenSolaris before that) on mine, and I tend to agree - Linux ZFS is unlikely to ever be as mature as either the Illumos kerneled distros (OpenIndiana, Nexenta, SmartOS), or FreeBSD (and derived systems like FreeNAS), both of which ship ZFS in the kernel as a primary filesystem.
- sciurus 14y ago
  How many of the Illumos or FreeBSD developers are working on ZFS? I'm curious if those implementations actually have any more manpower than the ZFS on Linux project.
  - flatline3 14y ago
    It seems more valuable to judge them by the fruits of their labor. This applies to more than just file systems.
  - bcantrill 14y ago
    The companies that are betting on ZFS -- Delphix, Nexenta and Joyent (and a bunch more that are less public about their work) -- are overwhelmingly (indeed, exclusively, to the best of my knowledge) on illumos and FreeBSD. Of these, Delphix in particular is of note because of the original ZFS core team members working there: Matt Ahrens (the co-inventor of ZFS), Eric Schrock and George Wilson -- not to mention important ZFS contributors like Adam Leventhal and Chris Siden.[1] So illumos remains the repository of record for ZFS -- with a close relationship with those working on ZFS on FreeBSD. While the Linux port is certainly a Good Thing, it does not reflect shift in the epicenter of ZFS development... [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc#t=43m54s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc#t=43m54s
  - gcb 14y ago
    You don't want manpower for file system stuff. All my prepare and forget servers runs openbsd just because they have less people adding features (and bugs) and the few people there have awesome attention to quality (not just security) to the point of trading documentation bugs as well, bugs. Granted it will move slower. And you may not have zfs...
radiowave 14y ago
Had it been available when I built mine, I'd certainly have checked it out. I'm running a Microserver with OpenIndiana, (4x2TB + 60GB SSD for booting and read cache), and it's been absolutely fine except for the video being slow and hot-plugging a USB keyboard or mouse is sometimes a little hit and miss. I'm happy to live with those issues - in the year since I built it I've never needed to touch it.
nl 14y ago
SmartOS won't run on AMD chips[1], which the HP MicroServers have. It's too bad, because I'd planned a SmartOS+Ubuntu build for mine. [1] http://wiki.smartos.org/display/DOC/SmartOS+Technical+FAQs#SmartOSTechnicalFAQs-WhataboutAMDsupport%3F http://wiki.smartos.org/display/DOC/SmartOS+Technical+FAQs#S...
- jclulow 14y ago
  It should be noted that this isn't quite true. The default (production-grade) KVM module shipped in SmartOS presently only supports Intel CPUs with both VT-x and EPT. SmartOS itself runs fine on AMD CPUs, and you can use everything except KVM for hardware-accelerated virtual machines.

zdw 14y ago

I run OpenIndiana (and OpenSolaris before that) on mine, and I tend to agree - Linux ZFS is unlikely to ever be as mature as either the Illumos kerneled distros (OpenIndiana, Nexenta, SmartOS), or FreeBSD (and derived systems like FreeNAS), both of which ship ZFS in the kernel as a primary filesystem.

sciurus 14y ago
How many of the Illumos or FreeBSD developers are working on ZFS? I'm curious if those implementations actually have any more manpower than the ZFS on Linux project.
- flatline3 14y ago
  It seems more valuable to judge them by the fruits of their labor. This applies to more than just file systems.
- bcantrill 14y ago
  The companies that are betting on ZFS -- Delphix, Nexenta and Joyent (and a bunch more that are less public about their work) -- are overwhelmingly (indeed, exclusively, to the best of my knowledge) on illumos and FreeBSD. Of these, Delphix in particular is of note because of the original ZFS core team members working there: Matt Ahrens (the co-inventor of ZFS), Eric Schrock and George Wilson -- not to mention important ZFS contributors like Adam Leventhal and Chris Siden.[1] So illumos remains the repository of record for ZFS -- with a close relationship with those working on ZFS on FreeBSD. While the Linux port is certainly a Good Thing, it does not reflect shift in the epicenter of ZFS development... [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc#t=43m54s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc#t=43m54s
- gcb 14y ago
  You don't want manpower for file system stuff. All my prepare and forget servers runs openbsd just because they have less people adding features (and bugs) and the few people there have awesome attention to quality (not just security) to the point of trading documentation bugs as well, bugs. Granted it will move slower. And you may not have zfs...

radiowave 14y ago

Had it been available when I built mine, I'd certainly have checked it out. I'm running a Microserver with OpenIndiana, (4x2TB + 60GB SSD for booting and read cache), and it's been absolutely fine except for the video being slow and hot-plugging a USB keyboard or mouse is sometimes a little hit and miss. I'm happy to live with those issues - in the year since I built it I've never needed to touch it.

nl 14y ago

SmartOS won't run on AMD chips[1], which the HP MicroServers have. It's too bad, because I'd planned a SmartOS+Ubuntu build for mine. [1] http://wiki.smartos.org/display/DOC/SmartOS+Technical+FAQs#SmartOSTechnicalFAQs-WhataboutAMDsupport%3F http://wiki.smartos.org/display/DOC/SmartOS+Technical+FAQs#S...

jclulow 14y ago
It should be noted that this isn't quite true. The default (production-grade) KVM module shipped in SmartOS presently only supports Intel CPUs with both VT-x and EPT. SmartOS itself runs fine on AMD CPUs, and you can use everything except KVM for hardware-accelerated virtual machines.