Apple drops ZFS

This will be seen as a blow to OS X by many owners who hoped it might replace the existing HFS+ file system. More here and a bit about ZFS/HFS+:

OS News

Not a big surprise really, but the concern I have is Apple is likely to be building a new file system from scratch (or using existing OSS code), and this doesn't precisely fill me with confidence with all the issues Apple has had with data loss in the past.

Faolan wrote in post #8884917
This will be seen as a blow to OS X by many owners who hoped it might replace the existing HFS+ file system.

That would be what, like 10 people?

Data loss happens with every OS (including the latest Microsoft fiasco). I've never lost data from an issue with OS X, but I have had several hard drives fail. Anyone who doesn't have a backup system in place is just asking for trouble, but Apple dropping ZFS is strictly a business decision; HFS+ if perfectly fine from a statistical perspective. So, once again, the sky is not faolan.

Tony-S wrote in post #8885219
That would be what, like 10 people?

Data loss happens with every OS (including the latest Microsoft fiasco). I've never lost data from an issue with OS X, but I have had several hard drives fail. Anyone who doesn't have a backup system in place is just asking for trouble, but Apple dropping ZFS is strictly a business decision; HFS+ if perfectly fine from a statistical perspective. So, once again, the sky is not faolan.

Actually, ZFS was one of the major things people were looking forward to in 10.6/10.7 (when it would be released kept changing). Performance and reliability wise, HFS+ is worse than NTFS, and some of the file path limitations were getting to be pretty bad. ZFS would be a much better option, and even remove the need for that ridiculously priced RAID card (for most people. the people who actually need it probably have their needs met by non-apple hardware).

As for "latest Microsoft fiasco", they weren't running windows server on those fileservers if that's what you think. And wasn't even an OS issue at all, rather hardware and planning issues (or lack of hardware backups and poor planning).

Tony-S wrote in post #8885219
Data loss happens with every OS (including the latest Microsoft fiasco).

Microsoft owned subsidiary using non-Microsoft software not Azure. More about the Microsoft/Danger database failure here:

Beta news

Microsoft Windows has never had a major data loss issue (apart from WHS - Alternative NTFS filestreams) unlike Apple:

Network move - data loss
Firewire data loss
Guest user data loss
Home folder data loss
Time Capsules failure - potential data loss (retrievable but in breach of warranty if applicable)

Apple has a far poorer reputation for protecting data than M$ has, and I never the said the sky was falling down. I merely was stating that development of ZFS has been stopped and I had little confidence in Apple being able to produce a production environment capable file system out of the box first time.

As to backing up your data I do hope it's not a Time Capsule (see above)

basroil wrote in post #8885600
Actually, ZFS was one of the major things people were looking forward to in 10.6/10.7 (when it would be released kept changing).

Some were, but for most people it's unnecessary. Better? Sure. Necessary? No.

HFS+ is perfectly fine for 99.99999999% of the people out there.

Considering the liability baggage that comes with ZFS, it's no wonder Apple dropped it and they are likely working on their own system that won't infringe upon others' proprietary technology.

Irrelevant. M$ had the company for some time, used M$ "management" techniques to ruin the company, then tried to deflect blame. That's just their business model. Always has been, always will be.

Tony-S wrote in post #8885646
HFS+ is perfectly fine for 99.99999999% of the people out there.

Actually ZFS addresses many of the shortcomings of HFS+

- Disk snapshot/Clones
- Pooled storage (no drive letters just a bit storage 'zone')
- On the fly checksums
- Pre-fetching
- 128bit file system
- Better usage of large HDs (250Gb or more) with hashing and clusters

As you can see it would have a major step from HFS in many respects. Apple is facing issues with HFS with the advent of 1Tb drives and being able to use them properly. I spoken to a number of OS X users who Think (and this is their opinion) that HFS seems to get more fragile as they use larger drives. In plain English they state that they have had to rebuild the drive or repair it more often than smaller drives.

Tony-S wrote in post #8885646
Some were, but for most people it's unnecessary. Better? Sure. Necessary? No.

Nobody was discussing necessary vs better, necessary is always dependent on the user, better in this case means better for everyone.

HFS+ is perfectly fine for 99.99999999% of the people out there.

Again, nobody said it wasn't, just that there are better systems out there that are good for a few more decimal places of the population.

Considering the liability baggage that comes with ZFS, it's no wonder Apple dropped it and they are likely working on their own system that won't infringe upon others' proprietary technology.


Irrelevant. M$ had the company for some time, used M$ "management" techniques to ruin the company, then tried to deflect blame. That's just their business model. Always has been, always will be.
Called outsourcing, it's done in all businesses in every field. In this case, they contracted a major company that decided to majorly screw things up. Like apple blaming nvidia for their bad gpus. If they are above the rest, why don't they design and produce their own graphics cards, or cpu, or motherboard components? ALL companies follow the protocol for this sort of thing.

All in red

Per Jeff Bonwick at Sun

Apple can currently just take the ZFS CDDL code and incorporate it
(like they did with DTrace), but it may be that they wanted a "private
license" from Sun (with appropriate technical support and
indemnification), and the two entities couldn't come to mutually
agreeable terms.

I cannot disclose details, but that is the essence of it.

Jeff

This is also an interesting article on the issue http://devwhy.blogspot​.com/2009/10/loss-of-zfs.html