Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2022 21:01:11 +0000 From: Steve O'Hara-Smith <steve@sohara.org> To: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Zfs Guide Message-ID: <20221105210111.2b0d80ba5ffb5deca8beed22@sohara.org> In-Reply-To: <20221105191506.ufa4nexieim3dhzu@freebsd> References: <20221105191506.ufa4nexieim3dhzu@freebsd>
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On Sat, 5 Nov 2022 12:15:06 -0700 Joe B <jb1277976@gmail.com> wrote: > So when i installed freeBSD about 5 days ago i noticed that it auto did > ZFS pool and everything didn't know why but i went with it. Trying to > understand it i looked online for some guides and the zfs fs seems very > intresting, snapshots, compression everything. It seems that it was > really made for two drives not one. i kinda understand if my internal > hdd goes out then i would have a backup. Two drives is a minimum for ZFS to be really useful, it does work fine on a single drive and it has benefits over many other filesystems even without redundancy but it is the integration of redundancy and error handling into the filesystem that makes ZFS special. > Currently setup a VM with freebsd and want to test zfs. should i make > two disk hard drives in the VM to test or should i be able to just play > with one ? You can play with one - but since its a VM and playing is the object you might as well make several and play with the various arrangements ZFS provides (RAIDZn as well as mirrors) and experiment with what it's like replacing a bad disc in the various arrangements and how the tradeoffs between space, security and performance play out. Another good fun experiment is converting one ZFS arrangement into another with a minimum of extra drives - there are some guides on line for this kind of stunt using empty files backing vdevs that are marked offline while data is copied to the new store and then replaced by drives from the old store so as to regain redundancy. As for guides - the handbook /should/ be definitive (man pages may be more up to date if the handbook is lagging) for what is in FreeBSD and anything specific to FreeBSD but (modulo versions) ZFS is ZFS so most of what's in the rest is likely to apply and may well give insight but the available features will probably not correspond exactly with FreeBSD. -- Steve O'Hara-Smith <steve@sohara.org>
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