From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Apr 18 09:11:09 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 B00D51065675 for ; Mon, 18 Apr 2011 09:11:09 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from petefrench@ingresso.co.uk) Received: from constantine.ingresso.co.uk (constantine.ingresso.co.uk [IPv6:2001:470:1f09:176e::3]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 798038FC14 for ; Mon, 18 Apr 2011 09:11:09 +0000 (UTC) Received: from dilbert.london-internal.ingresso.co.uk ([10.64.50.6] helo=dilbert.ingresso.co.uk) by constantine.ingresso.co.uk with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.73 (FreeBSD)) (envelope-from ) id 1QBkU8-000FBf-AI; Mon, 18 Apr 2011 10:11:08 +0100 Received: from petefrench by dilbert.ingresso.co.uk with local (Exim 4.74 (FreeBSD)) (envelope-from ) id 1QBkU8-000M9V-9U; Mon, 18 Apr 2011 10:11:08 +0100 To: daniel@digsys.bg, freebsd-stable@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <4DABDB31.90301@digsys.bg> Message-Id: From: Pete French Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 10:11:08 +0100 Cc: Subject: Re: ZFS root on MB Intel S3420GP 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: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 09:11:09 -0000 > One nice feature of ZFS I have discovered is with USB flash media. You > are not typically supposed to write much to that media, but using UFS on > USB sticks is awful. On contrary, when used with ZFS, the USB sticks > behave much differently, because ZFS will group writes and not do silly > things like issue lots of 512 byte writes. So, you may have complete > development system on an USB stick, or a pair of these. The only real > trouble with USB stisks is that some motherboards behave unpredictable > as to boot order, but this is improving. I would second this - I have a USB 'rescue' stick with ZFS on root thats works very nicely. I also compress most of the ZFS filesystem on there (aside from the bits needed to boot) as that also improves performance due to making less reads and writes on the flash drive. It's a very nice tool to have in ones jacket pocket :-) -pete.