ZDnet - Apple

[.Kompressor]

http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=123

April 15th, 2007

Apple?s new kick-butt file systemb>

Posted by Robin Harris @ 10:26 pm

As a long time fan of Apple - I bought an Apple // in 1978 - I watch Apple?s storage efforts with special interest. The least talked about addition to the next version of Mac OS X, Leopard, is notable. Especially since Microsoft?s WinFS bit the dust.

Apple is doing something really cool with storage - not to discount their laudable RAID product - and that something is called ZFS. The bright side of the Leopard slip: more time to integrate ZFS is a Good Thing.

ZFS = non-acronym

ZFS is a very cool - and open source - file system that some smart guys at Sun built. Its tree structured checksums eliminates most of the bit rot that afflicts Macs and PCs. When ZFS retrieves your data, you can be sure it is your data, and not the misbegotten spawn of a driver burp.

Add a disk drive to ZFS and it simply joins the pool of blocks available for storage. You don?t have to manage another disk.

It is cheaper for ZFS to do a snapshot copy than it is to overwrite your data. While Time Machine doesn?t require ZFS - journaling HFS+ can do it, ZFS would make it easier and perform betterHere?s some more cool stuffol stuff after the link jump

http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=123

[XerXis]

i stopped reading after the kick-butt and cool words. Does zdnet try to be hip? Anyway, i'll look it up on some other site where they still understand the meaning of journalism

[cosine]

i stopped reading after the kick-butt and cool words. Does zdnet try to be hip? Anyway, i'll look it up on some other site where they still understand the meaning of journalism

You wrote off an article full of information because they said "kick-butt"? Congratulations. Also, in case you were too busy typing up your angry forum post to notice, this is in fact a blog. Fun fact: Sometimes, in blogs, they have a less serious tone. Crazy stuff, I know.

[.Neo]

i stopped reading after the kick-butt and cool words. Does zdnet try to be hip? Anyway, i'll look it up on some other site where they still understand the meaning of journalism

Thank you for sharing that with us. Great contribution to this thread. (Y)

Anyway...

I'm very interested to see how Apple is going to implement all this into the OS and particularly the Finder. If I understand correctly different partitions and HDDs are a thing of the past from a software/data point of view?

[Not Cool]

I don't think it was saying partitions are a thing of the past, but HDDs are. There still are reasons for partitions, e.g. other operating systems.

[.Neo]

I'll rephrase myself: ;) Currently moving files between partition takes time, while moving files within the same partition is instantly. Wouldn't that change when all data is part of one big pool?

Or will stuff like that remain the same as with HFS+ and most other filesystems?

[Digitalx]

does sound interesting might go read up on it if i have a break from studying

[Southern Patriot]

I'm very interested to see how Apple is going to implement all this into the OS and particularly the Finder.

Once the file system is implemented in the system, it should be transparent to all applications, including the Finder.

[Max Veteran]

I wish Microsoft should take an example on this. I don't want to start a flame war, but how come Apple can do this over the period of 18 months and with Longhorn we were promised 'WinFX' - a new file system, which then became known as just an 'add-on' for NTFS. 5 years later, it doesn't exist.

[temple_treefrog]

I wish Microsoft should take an example on this. I don't want to start a flame war, but how come Apple can do this over the period of 18 months and with Longhorn we were promised 'WinFX' - a new file system, which then became known as just an 'add-on' for NTFS. 5 years later, it doesn't exist.

From what I gather Microsoft wabuildingi> the new file system from scratch where ZFS (Zettabyte File System) was developed in 2005 by Sun Microsystems - this means Apple doesn't need to spend time building and debugging the system.

You might want to check out these links for more information:

Wiki

OpenSolaris

[LTD]

I wish Microsoft should take an example on this. I don't want to start a flame war, but how come Apple can do this over the period of 18 months and with Longhorn we were promised 'WinFX' - a new file system, which then became known as just an 'add-on' for NTFS. 5 years later, it doesn't exist.

This is a Mac forum. We're here to extol the benefits of the Apple platform/products.

It's really about the Culture of Mediocrity at Microsoft. If a technology isn't actually *necessary*, but still new and helpful, and if a *feature* isn't actually necessary, although still new and helpful, it gets shelved. Experimentation, unique ideas, and creative solutions are simply not a priority at Microsoft. The R&D money is there, but it's at the disposal of a management that knows that businesses still depend on MS products, which in turn also drive home sales, which in turn results (thanks in part to licensing) in nearly every PC unit that is sold comig loaded with Windows. It's nearly a lock-in.

In this environment, where money is made not by introducing new and exciting products that people want - or never knew they wanted (!) but rather, by relying on a wide-licensing scheme that assures a constant stream of revenue, which in turn (thanks to such ubiquity), drives sales in associated markets, why would anyone bother to do anything new or interesting?

It's about attitude. MS' attitude toward users, particularly home users. It doesn't look good.

[tcsdoc]

I'll need to read up on ZFS but what about data integrity when(if) a hard drive hiccups? It sounds like a RAID scenario where the drives are all striped to form a single huge drive. This increases the amount of data loss if a hard drive fails. I currently have 4 hard drives in my Mac Pro and would love to chain them all together into a single volume. Just a concern of mine but I guess Time Machine and ZFS would tie together to form a safety net....

[guruparan]

. Experimentation, unique ideas, and creative solutions are simply not a priority at Microsoft. The R&D money is there, but it's at the disposal of a management that knows that businesses still depend on MS products,

Not true....

if you are a construction engineer, would you want to use steel/iron/cement to build up a 100 storey building(thousands of people reside) or use wood/plastic*preferably WHITE* to build a small house that only 10 people use?

But making a great looking wood/plastic house is not a bad idea...sametime if you choose the construction of a 100storey building with (steel/iron/cement) than thats a good idea, because you can show who you are..& it reaches a better lot of audience.

Steel/iron/cement -> Windows (but remember steel/iron too wornout due to rust)

wood/plastic-> Mac (wood/plastic building doesnt fit for large audience) :rolleyes:

[Hurmoth]

I wish Microsoft should take an example on this. I don't want to start a flame war, but how come Apple can do this over the period of 18 months and with Longhorn we were promised 'WinFX' - a new file system, which then became known as just an 'add-on' for NTFS. 5 years later, it doesn't exist.

WinFX is .NET 3.0, which is included ;) Vista ;) WinFS is what Microsoft decided to drop. WinFS wasn't a filesystem either, it was a data storage and management system based on relational databases. NTFS was always planned as the default filesystem in Vista, not WinFS because it isn't a filesystem.

I like ZFS, but I thought this was just a rumor, Apple hasn't confirmed that they are switching to ZFS have they?

[Spielo]

Title should really be "Sun's new kick-butt file system in Apple's Leopard"

[Quillz]

Title should really be "Sun's new kick-butt file system in Apple's Leopard"

But then that would imply that Apple turned on their photocopiers, and we all know that Apple is a company that can do no wrong and innovates new and interesting ideas that have never been seen or done before, like Spaces and Time Machine.

[jackwanders]

Umm, am I understanding this right? What if I want to keep documents/music/photos on one hard drive while I keep the operating system and applications on another? It sounds like I wouldn't be able to do that with ZFS...

[Hurmoth]

Umm, am I understanding this right? What if I want to keep documents/music/photos on one hard drive while I keep the operating system and applications on another? It sounds like I wouldn't be able to do that with ZFS...

Why wouldn't you be allowed? You just plug another hard drive in (internal or external) and save everything over to the other hard drive like you do now. There shouldn't be any change in that just because you use a different filesystem. Maybe I'm not understanding your question...

[gigapixels Veteran]

Not true....

if you are a construction engineer, would you want to use steel/iron/cement to build up a 100 storey building(thousands of people reside) or use wood/plastic*preferably WHITE* to build a small house that only 10 people use?

But making a great looking wood/plastic house is not a bad idea...sametime if you choose the construction of a 100storey building with (steel/iron/cement) than thats a good idea, because you can show who you are..& it reaches a better lot of audience.

Steel/iron/cement -> Windows (but remember steel/iron too wornout due to rust)

wood/plastic-> Mac (wood/plastic building doesnt fit for large audience) :rolleyes:

That is probably the worst analogy I've ever heard. I'd point out the many flaws in it, but I really don't have time.

[PL_ Veteran]

I've heard about ZFS before, and I thought it's killer feature was Zettabyte disk support. Now, this is interesting, as it creates a seamless pool of data.

However, it means backups will work differently. And what if one HDD drops, which is something that could happen?

[.Neo]

Apple still has to do some extra work to add boot support to the filesystem. Sun never added that right?

[LTD]

Not true....

if you are a construction engineer, would you want to use steel/iron/cement to build up a 100 storey building(thousands of people reside) or use wood/plastic*preferably WHITE* to build a small house that only 10 people use?

But making a great looking wood/plastic house is not a bad idea...sametime if you choose the construction of a 100storey building with (steel/iron/cement) than thats a good idea, because you can show who you are..& it reaches a better lot of audience.

Steel/iron/cement -> Windows (but remember steel/iron too wornout due to rust)

wood/plastic-> Mac (wood/plastic building doesnt fit for large audience) :rolleyes:

I'm sorry, guruparan, but WTF are you talking about? So people are used to/more comfortable with . . . the status quo that is clearly broken? With the registry (WHY is it still there????) with that .dll mess?? It took MS *years* to even implement a UAC, which they just ended up fubaring anyway. MS needed - badly - to redo Windows from the ground up. New code, a fresh prespective, similar to the OS9 - OS X transition. Let XP sit as it is, and roll out something brand new in time to really stun the competition. Offer a "classic" backward compatibility mode, offer incentives to businesses to upgrade, healthy discounts encouraging them to gradually replace software. Turn the example of the Mac OS9 - OS X transition into something truly macrocosmic and workable. Do some marketing around it and get people excited.

And now, Vienna is a long, long way off.

But anyway, I'm off on one of my rants that made me forget about Vista (especially after realizing this aint no Longhorn!) and switch back to Mac. Best computing decision ever.

[temple_treefrog]

Apple still has to do some extra work to add boot support to the filesystem. Sun never added that right?

That's kind of right, ZFS initially did not have boot support. The ZFS Boot project recently successfully added boot support to the OpenSolaris project, and is available in recent builds of Solaris Nevada. Solaris 10 should get this update later in the year and it should be easy to port to Mac OS X.

[divinatum]

ZFS still does not work in the current developer preview (9a410 or something, I don't have it in front of me.) so, take all this information with a grain of salt still. If apple is Migrating to ZFS instead of HFS+ you'll bet that'll be big talk at WWDC.

[phantasmorph]

...I watch Apple?s storage efforts with special interest.

Statements such as this continue to remind me how glad I am to have a real life. :whistle:e: