From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Jan 28 00:00:34 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 54E5DD8D for ; Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:00:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from james@mansionfamily.plus.com) Received: from avasout06.plus.net (avasout06.plus.net [212.159.14.18]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C3854D65 for ; Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:00:33 +0000 (UTC) Received: from server.barnhouse ([146.90.105.78]) by avasout06 with smtp id tBxN1k0031hWQFE01BxPxg; Sun, 27 Jan 2013 23:57:23 +0000 X-CM-Score: 0.00 X-CNFS-Analysis: v=2.0 cv=OMj5K1mB c=1 sm=1 a=Z40meQbRMVLGL86UJXshxw==:17 a=sEz04tew6TsA:10 a=wStlYTCvxPMA:10 a=ihvODaAuJD4A:10 a=8nJEP1OIZ-IA:10 a=EBOSESyhAAAA:8 a=IpyN3E5MiDoA:10 a=XtXLnHt2WWn0UwK_gisA:9 a=wPNLvfGTeEIA:10 a=Z40meQbRMVLGL86UJXshxw==:117 Received: from [192.168.0.96] (workstation.barnhouse [192.168.0.96]) by server.barnhouse (Postfix) with ESMTP id 908A3681462 for ; Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:01:52 +0000 (GMT) Message-ID: <5105BEE4.4030402@mansionfamily.plus.com> Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2013 23:57:24 +0000 From: james User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; WOW64; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130107 Thunderbird/17.0.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: FreeBSD Mailing List Subject: ZFS - whole disk or partition or BSD slice? Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list Reply-To: james@mansionfamily.plus.com List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:00:34 -0000 I have a 9.1 system with some SATA disks in RAIDZ, upgraded from 9.0. The disks are all the same type, and I formatted them for FreeBSD and put ZFS in a slice covering most of them. I have seen suggestions for OpenIndiana etc that it is better to let ZFS have the whole raw disk and that this can control the way it manages the disk writeback mode. Does this apply to FreeBSD and ZFS too? Presumably the disks are currently FreeBSD-specific. If I used raw disks instead of slices, could I read them from a Solaris system too?