Adam Leventhal's blog » ZFS: Apple’s New Filesystem That Wasn’t

[grahamperrin]

From 2006-2009 ZFS was to be Apple's new filesystem… and Wikipedia tells us that Apple's ZFS project closed in 2009, but that was not the end of the story.

Recommended reading for anyone with an interest in the history of ZFS for Mac OS X:

• http://dtrace.org/blogs/ahl/2016/06/15/apple_and_zfs/

(There's a more recent history, not known to the public, but I'll never disclose the details.)

 

[AFEPPL]

But ZFS was alleged to have been stolen from NetApp as were the snapshots for copy on write.
No doubt the legal action against Sun and others was a worry and maybe a contributing factor.

 

[maflynn]

Apple seems to be more interested in creating something inhouse

Plus as noted in the linked article

In the meantime Sun and NetApp had been locked in a lawsuit over ZFS and other storage technologies since mid-2007.

then there's this

“I’ll tell you about doing business with my best friend Steve Jobs,” he apparently said, “I don’t do business with my best friend Steve Jobs.”

At this point ZFS is dead - at least for consumers. Apple has a new file system in the works, MS has theirs and of course Linux relies on ext4

 

[grahamperrin]

… ZFS is dead - at least for consumers. …

APFS is expected to do some things that ZFS can not, ZFS does some things that APFS can not or will not. I would not describe ZFS as dead for consumers.

 

[maflynn]

I would not describe ZFS as dead for consumers.

Of course it is.

What operating system ships with ZFS?

 

[grahamperrin]

What operating system ships with ZFS?

Unless I'm missing something: nothing in the article suggested that Apple might now, or in the future, ship macOS with ZFS.

For Mac users, there's the third party solution.

PC-BSD began booting from ZFS around five years ago. Integral support for ZFS began some time before that, I don't know when.

 

[maflynn]

Unless I'm missing something: nothing in the article suggested that Apple might now, or in the future, ship macOS with ZFS.

Agreed, Apple has moved on from ZFS, hence my comment its dead.

For Mac users, there's the third party solution.

For the majority of consumers, there's absolutely no need and low demand for a third party file system. its basically a solution looking for a problem.

Not even the ZFS engineers from Apple could make a compelling case to use ZFS, as their company failed to make any money and was bought out by Greenbytes.

PC-BSD began booting from ZFS around five years ago. Integral support for ZFS began some time before that, I don't know when.

Yup, and maybe 2016 will be the year of linux desktop

Consumers are not by and large using Linux, never mind ZFS. Sure there are hobbiests and pockets of usage. I'm not knocking Linux, I've used it before, but for general consumer usage, Linux is not on the short list for people. Nor is a third party file system. Most people just don't care enough to worry about whether they're running NTFS, ext4, HFS+. They're more interested in their data and using the computer.

 

[grahamperrin]

… the ZFS engineers from Apple … failed to make any money and was bought out by Greenbytes. …

Don Brady (formerly Senior Software Engineer, Kernel and File Systems Teams, Apple Inc.) was the Founder of, and Principal Developer at, Tens Complement and to the best of my knowledge – beyond http://web.archive.org/web/20110903055730/http://tenscomplement.com/about-us and other published information – there was no other ZFS engineer from Apple at Tens Complement.

… For the majority of consumers …

The article made no mention of minorities or majorities. It was primarily recommended for anyone with an interest in the history of ZFS for Mac OS X.

… maybe 2016 will be the year of linux desktop …

Why the exaggerated response? Do you doubt that PC-BSD began booting from ZFS around five years ago? Or that integral support for ZFS began some time before that?

… Apple has moved on from ZFS, hence my comment its dead. …

No, it's not dead. Expression of a majority view does not necessarily kill a minority view.

… there are hobbiests and pockets of usage …

Yes, that's better

 

[maflynn]

No, it's not dead. Expression of a majority view does not necessarily kill a minority view.

Ok, let me rephrase it. For the majority of people, ZFS is not needed and for intents and purposes, will not be used.

You may love it, and that's your right, but that doesn't mean its a viable option for the consumers and that's my point.

For typical desktop usage, its product that never caught on and given what's occurring in the market will most likely never catch on.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

One file system to rule them all...

APFS is expected to do some things that ZFS can not, ZFS does some things that APFS can not or will not. I would not describe ZFS as dead for consumers.

There's a very long list of file systems that have been used over the decades, the vast majority of which have been proprietary. Whether it's political/NIH/licensing cost, or whether it's a matter of delivering a file system tailored to the hardware/software environment it's intended to serve... Apple hardly deviated from longstanding, industry-wide practices by rolling its own.

ZFS was never "alive" for consumers, presuming you define consumers as PC/mobile device end-users. It came tantalizingly close to becoming such, for a little while. It probably made more sense for Apple to pursue it back when they were in the server business, but that ship has also sailed.

I guess ZFS keeps coming up in discussions here because of that brief flirtation with Apple. However, the question could just as easily be, "Why not Btrfs?" It seems to share many of ZFS' attributes. But in the end, I don't think either ZFS or Btrfs do everything that APFS will do (just as APFS may not do everything those do). Why license something you may need to modify/extend, why carry code for capabilities you don't want/need to support? That's fundamental to the concept of product differentiation.

 

[grahamperrin]

ZFS

… tantalizingly close …

iPhone with ZFS was relatively well known. I never saw Mac OS X booted from ZFS, but I know that it was done years ago. High-level discussions in 2010 – a surprise to me, it was nice to learn of it from someone so well-respected. Then there's my wee bit of history, but I shouldn't describe that as tantalising … it was/is more of a practicality.

APFS

I'll have more for that topic after I test fsck_apfs … looking forward to hearing reading Leventhal's thoughts on that.

 

[grahamperrin]

For anyone with an interest in OpenZFS: work on multi-platform encryption appears to be progressing very nicely.

https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/pull/4329 in particular:

• https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/pull/4329#issuecomment-223818737 and some of the subsequent comments
  
• https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/pull/4329#issuecomment-243134372 nineteen days ago
• https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/pull/4329#issuecomment-244885528

 

[the8thark]

(There's a more recent history, not known to the public, but I'll never disclose the details.)

If what you are saying is true, someone will release this information. So you are only delaying the inevatable. Either you don't want us to ahve the full information or you will get into trouble if you do release it. So which is it?

 

[grahamperrin]

Past

… someone will release this information. So you are only delaying the inevatable. Either you don't want us to ahve the full information or you will get into trouble if you do release it. So which is it?

It's not really either of those two things; not so simple. Neither should you expect anyone to publish the information.

Present

A few days ago for fun I tried to install a FreeBSD-based operating system, plus a desktop environment, to a 4 GB flash drive. I jokingly assumed that it would fail but it succeeded, and without me making any change to compression the whole thing used less than 1.7 GB – all ZFS.