From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Apr 28 18:25:59 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2A3C3106564A for ; Thu, 28 Apr 2011 18:25:59 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cswiger@mac.com) Received: from asmtpout029.mac.com (asmtpout029.mac.com [17.148.16.104]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0BDE08FC13 for ; Thu, 28 Apr 2011 18:25:58 +0000 (UTC) MIME-version: 1.0 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-type: text/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Received: from cswiger1.apple.com ([17.209.4.71]) by asmtp029.mac.com (Oracle Communications Messaging Exchange Server 7u4-20.01 64bit (built Nov 21 2010)) with ESMTPSA id <0LKD002AEKJ9J090@asmtp029.mac.com> for freebsd-stable@freebsd.org; Thu, 28 Apr 2011 11:25:58 -0700 (PDT) X-Proofpoint-Virus-Version: vendor=fsecure engine=2.50.10432:5.2.15,1.0.148,0.0.0000 definitions=2011-04-28_06:2011-04-28, 2011-04-28, 1970-01-01 signatures=0 X-Proofpoint-Spam-Details: rule=notspam policy=default score=0 spamscore=0 ipscore=0 suspectscore=0 phishscore=0 bulkscore=1 adultscore=0 classifier=spam adjust=0 reason=mlx engine=6.0.2-1012030000 definitions=main-1104280114 From: Chuck Swiger In-reply-to: <537A8F4F-A302-40F9-92DF-403388D99B4B@gsoft.com.au> Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 11:25:56 -0700 Message-id: <2B80846C-E8A9-4FF6-962C-9405469661D6@mac.com> References: <537A8F4F-A302-40F9-92DF-403388D99B4B@gsoft.com.au> To: Daniel O'Connor X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1084) Cc: freebsd-stable List Subject: Re: ZFS vs OSX Time Machine X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 18:25:59 -0000 On Apr 28, 2011, at 7:03 AM, Daniel O'Connor wrote: > Does anyone else use ZFS to store TM backups? > > I find that whenever my laptop (over wifi!) starts a TM the ZFS machine it's backing up to grinds to a halt.. Other systems streaming stuff over NFS from it also tend to stall.. > > I presume that TM is doing something which causes ZFS some issues but I'm not sure how to find out what the real problem is let alone how to fix it.. Caveat: Time Machine is a viable backup system, but you're outside the configurations which it supports. TM really wants the backup to be located on an HFS+ filesystem because it makes very extensive use of hard links-- including hard links to directories-- which are not widely supported by other Unix filesystems. Even if you choose to continue using ZFS storage, please note that you'll obtain significantly better results by using AFP instead of NFS filesharing. Wikipedia has useful info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Machine_%28Mac_OS%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Filing_Protocol Regards, -- -Chuck