From owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Nov 17 05:43:50 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3B271106564A for ; Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:43:50 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jdc@koitsu.dyndns.org) Received: from QMTA07.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net (qmta07.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net [76.96.62.64]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D6D228FC17 for ; Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:43:49 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jdc@koitsu.dyndns.org) Received: from OMTA14.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net ([76.96.62.60]) by QMTA07.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net with comcast id g4l51a0061HzFnQ575j3av; Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:43:03 +0000 Received: from koitsu.dyndns.org ([69.181.141.110]) by OMTA14.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net with comcast id g5jU1a00H2P6wsM3a5jVTh; Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:43:29 +0000 X-Authority-Analysis: v=1.0 c=1 a=QycZ5dHgAAAA:8 a=-Gcd8YnJejmQ4RLFNSQA:9 a=zpWm4ezJjMoDTnE1CdLwkVdNfU0A:4 a=EoioJ0NPDVgA:10 a=VVm1lkAqD8YA:10 a=LY0hPdMaydYA:10 Received: by icarus.home.lan (Postfix, from userid 1000) id D65B333C36; Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:43:47 -0800 (PST) Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:43:47 -0800 From: Jeremy Chadwick To: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20081117054347.GA20749@icarus.home.lan> References: <20081109174303.GA5146@ourbrains.org> <20081109184349.GG51239@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> <4920D879.3070806@jrv.org> <20081117050441.GA16855@ourbrains.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20081117050441.GA16855@ourbrains.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) Subject: Re: Will XFS be adopted X-BeenThere: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Filesystems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:43:50 -0000 On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 12:04:41AM -0500, Dan wrote: > James R. Van Artsdalen(james-freebsd-fs2@jrv.org)@2008.11.16 20:35:37 -0600: > > ZFS has limitations. > > > > It is not appropriate for "appliance" applications such as the Soekris > > boxes does due to memory consumption. > YES! In my opinion it's not even appropriate for a machine with 2GB of > RAM. Why waste so much RAM on an FS? Does anyone know? Or is this some > sort of conspiracy to sell more bgger boxes. It's Sun, afterall.... Please. If Sun's sole goal was to "sell bigger boxes", they wouldn't be participating in the open-source world with OpenSolaris and helping other OSes with getting ZFS. None of those things tie you to Sun hardware. The ZFS caching concept as I see it is quite simple to understand: keep as much data as possible in RAM, to decrease overall disk I/O (RAM is significantly faster than disk). There's other reasons (goals) as well, but I'm trying to keep it simple. The reality of the situation is that for most desktops and servers, you can buy 4GB of RAM for something like US$25-30. That's incredibly inexpensive -- were you around back in the mid-90s when 2x4MB SIMMs cost you US$200? Or in the late 80s when a 1MB expansion card for the Apple IIGS cost US$300? I understand (really!) these things can't be compared to an embedded platform, but the entire world does not use embedded hardware. Step back for a moment and reflect. And you do realise that the memory requirements of ZFS can be tuned, yes? You can literally tell it "only use 16MB of memory for the ARC". > > BTRFS will be another filesystem to watch. Perhaps foreign filesystems > > could be supported out of ports. But the fundamental limitation, as was > > said, is that someone has to care enough to do the port. > > What kinda bugs me is why FreeBSD hasn't adopted a nice journaling FS > until now. Look at Linux - Reiser, EXT3 and XFS/JFS have been in it for > years. What gives with FreeBSD? There's gjournal(8), which does journalling on a block level, meaning you can use whatever FS you want atop it. Also: if Linux has the things you want, use it! Pick whichever OS gets the job done for you, and meets your requirements. If FreeBSD lacks something which Linux has, and that something is important to you, going with Linux is the correct choice. The same applies to any OS, not just Linux. Its about having choices, and solving problems -- not about blind OS advocacy. -- | Jeremy Chadwick jdc at parodius.com | | Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ | | UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, USA | | Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP: 4BD6C0CB |