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Any ZFS users ?

costabunny

costabunny

macrumors 68020
Original poster
May 15, 2008
2,466
71
Weymouth, UK
So as I am about to step back into the Mac Pro world I am brushing up on the current state of ZFS on the Mac. All looks good but I figured |I'd ask in here to see if there are any known issues affecting 10.8.x or Mavericks (if anyone has tried ZFS on 10.9 yet).

I shall be running 3x 2TB in RAIDZ (for data security with bit-rot protection mainly). I will use a FW800 3TB for backups on top of the time capsule.

I shall be running 24/7 mostly with an AirVideo server. My other uses shall be day to day stuff (webs, fb etc) and some photoshop and garageband.

so I guess it's over to you guys n gals......
 
It kinda depends on what solution you choose.

Currently, the choices seem to be:
- ZEVO
- MacZFS Stable
- MacZFS Prototype
(feature comparison - found this one over at ZEVO forums, not sure if biased)

I personally went with ZEVO at the time, which turned out to be an unfortunate choice. The project is kinda dead, and the current version does not work under Mavericks beta releases so far. Theoretically I could switch to the MacZFS Prototype, which should be able import storage pools created with ZEVO, but I'm not sure it's stable enough for normal use.

On Mountain Lion, ZEVO works fine for me though. Haven't encountered any serious issues yet, although transferring large amounts of data leads to a seriously jumpy mouse pointer since I enable compression (gzip -9), making it rather difficult to work on anything else.

Kinda off-topic, perhaps, but since you mentioned AirVideo: Inmethod finally released their major update AirVideo HD a few days back. They released it as a new app, forcing existing users to pay again, but you might find it worth checking out. I'm running it side by side with the original AirVideo for now, due to a few bugs (it doesn't like FLAC audio, for one), but it's pretty ok.
 
Using MacZFS here. 10.8.4 is fine, installer doesn't work in 10.9, installer doesn't support OS version.
 
Nice to see....

people working and using ZFS. Back in the time when I had the interest, I got frustrated. But always want to give the thing another try. Pretty cool to know there are implementations capable of working in real world conditions.....:D

:):apple:
 
meptik said:
It kinda depends on what solution you choose.

Currently, the choices seem to be:
- ZEVO
- MacZFS Stable
- MacZFS Prototype
(feature comparison - found this one over at ZEVO forums, not sure if biased)

I personally went with ZEVO at the time, which turned out to be an unfortunate choice. The project is kinda dead, and the current version does not work under Mavericks beta releases so far. Theoretically I could switch to the MacZFS Prototype, which should be able import storage pools created with ZEVO, but I'm not sure it's stable enough for normal use.

On Mountain Lion, ZEVO works fine for me though. Haven't encountered any serious issues yet, although transferring large amounts of data leads to a seriously jumpy mouse pointer since I enable compression (gzip -9), making it rather difficult to work on anything else.

Kinda off-topic, perhaps, but since you mentioned AirVideo: Inmethod finally released their major update AirVideo HD a few days back. They released it as a new app, forcing existing users to pay again, but you might find it worth checking out. I'm running it side by side with the original AirVideo for now, due to a few bugs (it doesn't like FLAC audio, for one), but it's pretty ok.
Click to expand...

Yep - pretty much settled on MacZFS stable here. done some reading up and it all seems familiar (last I used was when I was a Solaris admin).

good to know some folks still use. I want to eliminate as best I can the risks of Bit-rot at the same times a maintaining reasonable performance and data duplication. ZFS never let me down in the past, but in the last fours years I have had a mixed bag of storage solutions. ZFS whips them all I think.
 
MacZFS, tried RaidZ as an alternative to external Raid boxes. Personal media (movies, music, etc.), two years no issues whatsoever. Didn't know a damn thing, did a lot of reading and took the plunge. Couldn't be happier.
 
costbunny

I would suggest that zfs is not well supported on mac os x, and you should consider running in on a different OS. Could be a virtual environment, or a different hardware system which would probably be hooked up via 1 gbit ethernet. I favor a separate appliance. Newegg had the hp n54l microserver for $250; it holds 4 disks (16TB), and should saturate the ethernet. The hp gen 8 is: more expensive ($400), more upgradeable (C20x chipset, socket LGA 1155), more performance, but suffers from loud fans currently until/if hp fixes iLo monitoring firmware. Those are, I think some of the cheaper options, and people are happy running a recent ZFS version with FreeBSD, often via FreeNAS. For storage to be reliable, it gets difficult if the storage device must serve multiple functions, running on a less than optimum OS.

http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/ProLia.../MicroServer-Gen8-is-noisy/m-p/6183773#M20014
 
ibgb said:
costbunny

I would suggest that zfs is not well supported on mac os x, and you should consider running in on a different OS. Could be a virtual environment, or a different hardware system which would probably be hooked up via 1 gbit ethernet. I favor a separate appliance. Newegg had the hp n54l microserver for $250; it holds 4 disks (16TB), and should saturate the ethernet. The hp gen 8 is: more expensive ($400), more upgradeable (C20x chipset, socket LGA 1155), more performance, but suffers from loud fans currently until/if hp fixes iLo monitoring firmware. Those are, I think some of the cheaper options, and people are happy running a recent ZFS version with FreeBSD, often via FreeNAS. For storage to be reliable, it gets difficult if the storage device must serve multiple functions, running on a less than optimum OS.

http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/ProLia.../MicroServer-Gen8-is-noisy/m-p/6183773#M20014
Click to expand...

I do understand, however MacZFS is rather well supported by its community and works pretty well with the OS.

My needs are to have online file storage on my workstation with bit-rot protection. Having a separate server is something I've used before however now that's not the solution for me.

I will of course be running both HFS+ and RaidZ in tandem; coupled with my off site backups I am pretty covered. I just want the file store to be readily available at top performance.
 
costabunny said:
I do understand, however MacZFS is rather well supported by its community and works pretty well with the OS.
Click to expand...
A file system is not something that you want to "work pretty well". If ZFS is not supported at the OS level you are better off not running it on OS X. What guarantee do you have that the next minor update to OS X will not brake your ZFS implementation?

costabunny said:
My needs are to have online file storage on my workstation with bit-rot protection. Having a separate server is something I've used before however now that's not the solution for me.
Click to expand...
Your need is a want. If that is your want then you need to run Solaris or BSD, preferably Solaris.

costabunny said:
I just want the file store to be readily available at top performance.
Click to expand...
HFS+ is fine for your "webs, fb, photoshop, and garageband." If you want a top performing ZFS then you need to be running Solaris or BSD, preferably Solaris.
 
brand said:
A file system is not something that you want to "work pretty well". If ZFS is not supported at the OS level you are better off not running it on OS X. What guarantee do you have that the next minor update to OS X will not brake your ZFS implementation?


Your need is a want. If that is your want then you need to run Solaris or BSD, preferably Solaris.


HFS+ is fine for your "webs, fb, photoshop, and garageband." If you want a top performing ZFS then you need to be running Solaris or BSD, preferably Solaris.
Click to expand...


Perhaps a tad heavy handed. Since Oracle bought Solaris I can't recommend Solaris anymore.... and that's coming from a Sun bigot of 20+ years.

ZFS works well without any issues on my MacPro 2008/3,1 Home Server. I've been back and forth between FreeNAS (also ZFS based) and OS X Server with ZFS. Presently I've settled on OS X Server with ZFS. I like having a "more usable" Server for other things than FreeNas offered. Even tho I could do a lot of it with FreeNAS (BSD) Jails. FreeNas is BSD based, supports AFS, Timemachine, CIFS, iSCSI and NFS, does snapshots and really is a full featured NAS. It was really hard for me to decide to leave it and go OS X Server but I couldn't give up ZFS. The nice thing about ZFS combined with OS X Server is that you gain the ability to build RaidZ fault tolerant volumes and also build them with a ZIL cache (I use an SSD drive for ZIL) as well as L2ARC cache (also SSD). ZFS gives you snapshots, compression and dedup. Having ZFS plus OS X Server is the best of both worlds.

ZFS however isn't for the casual user. You're going to have to get into it and learn it. For me that was no big deal. I've been a Sr. Solaris/UNIX/Linux admin at a large university for the last 20+ years. Don't let zfs scare you tho. zfs isn't hard you are just going to have to get comfortable at the command line.
 
costabunny said:
So as I am about to step back into the Mac Pro world I am brushing up on the current state of ZFS on the Mac. All looks good but I figured |I'd ask in here to see if there are any known issues affecting 10.8.x or Mavericks (if anyone has tried ZFS on 10.9 yet).
Click to expand...

Yes. I am testing OpenZFS on 10.9.3 and it is running great. Outperforming Zevo actually. I just completed a scrub using OpenZFS 1.2.7 under 10.9.3 on a 9TB, 8 disk mirrored pair ZFS pool and it completed in 10 hours - 2 hours less than ZEVO.

I have gotten nearly two years of ZFS use on Mac OS now and the experience has been wonderful. Not only is my data protected but ZFS is incredibly robust. For example, on one occasion an internal sata data cable running 4 of the 8 disks in my ZFS pool became partially detached on my eSata tower rendering the pool inoperable. When I reattached the cable, there were a few errors in the pool but ZFS quickly repaired and resilvered the pool with ZERO DATA LOSS. There have been other instances of hardware failures and ZFS has completely recovered with no data loss. I wouldn't have the same confidence in HFS. So anyone running a MacPro with its ECC ram should check out ZFS. For me current data protection far outweighs any future incompatibilities.
 
After my last post, the MacZFS team released the last build, 74.3.3, which supports 10.9. Currently running it on 10.9.3 with no issues, also been using it for around 2 years now, couldn't be happier either :)

When 10.10 is released, I'll migrate to OpenZFS and re-create my RAIDZ pool, as when I created it I didn't know as much as I do now ;)
 
I don't reccomend to have ZFS native on any mac, due:

1- Not An Stable Implementation Yet.
2- Its Slow at best, requires a lot of system resources (ram mostly).
3- Requires at least 4 Hard Drives to implement the most valuable benefit of ZFS: RaidZ2

If you Want the the safety nuke-proof features of ZFS (RaidZ2), the clever way is to build an NAS with Nas4Free or Freenas as OS (where ZFS is stable and mature), and beefing that setup with about 1GB ram per TB of Installed Storage capacity (5gb per TB if you want to use the moreless useless feature of Deduplication).

Dont whorry about lan speeds, ZFS is slow per nature, so a 1gbit network link sure is enough.
 
Mago said:
I don't reccomend to have ZFS native on any mac, due:

1- Not An Stable Implementation Yet.
Click to expand...
Zevo has been plenty stable. OpenZFS latest release appears to be very stable as well.

2 - Its Slow at best, requires a lot of system resources (ram mostly).
Click to expand...
Slower than a non ZFS file system, yes, but then ZFS is doing more like protecting your data. But it is plenty fast in striped mirrored pairs on Sata busses. As to resources, yes, but ram is cheap. Plus I already have a Mac Pro with 32 GB ram anyway and, in any event, you will need a similar amount of ram on a FreeNas server.

- Requires at least 4 Hard Drives to implement the most valuable benefit of ZFS: RaidZ2
Click to expand...
Agreed. But hard drives are cheap and my MacPro has six available slots internally. And any redundant storage system will require multiple HDDs. I prefer mirrored pairs or triplets over RAIDZ2.

you Want the the safety nuke-proof features of ZFS (RaidZ2), the clever way is to build an NAS with Nas4Free or Freenas as OS (where ZFS is stable and mature), and beefing that setup with about 1GB ram per TB of Installed Storage capacity (5gb per TB if you want to use the moreless useless feature of Deduplication).

Dont whorry about lan speeds, ZFS is slow per nature, so a 1gbit network link sure is enough.
Click to expand...

Yes, this is an excellent option unless you already have a MacPro then you have a cheaper option.
 
Mago said:
I don't reccomend to have ZFS native on any mac, due:

1- Not An Stable Implementation Yet.
2- Its Slow at best, requires a lot of system resources (ram mostly).
3- Requires at least 4 Hard Drives to implement the most valuable benefit of ZFS: RaidZ2

If you Want the the safety nuke-proof features of ZFS (RaidZ2), the clever way is to build an NAS with Nas4Free or Freenas as OS (where ZFS is stable and mature), and beefing that setup with about 1GB ram per TB of Installed Storage capacity (5gb per TB if you want to use the moreless useless feature of Deduplication).

Dont whorry about lan speeds, ZFS is slow per nature, so a 1gbit network link sure is enough.
Click to expand...

ZFS uses a fair chunk of RAM whatever system you're on, when doing dedup or scrubbing.

Any implementation wanting do use RaidZ or RaidZ2 needs 4 drives minimum to perform well, that isn't a surprise either.

I have 4x 2Tb drives in RaidZ which snapshot to a FreeNAS 9.2.1.5 box with another RaidZ array.

Not sure what your point is?
 
marstan said:
Zevo has been plenty stable. OpenZFS latest release appears to be very stable as well.

Slower than a non ZFS file system, yes, but then ZFS is doing more like protecting your data. But it is plenty fast in striped mirrored pairs on Sata busses. As to resources, yes, but ram is cheap. Plus I already have a Mac Pro with 32 GB ram anyway and, in any event, you will need a similar amount of ram on a FreeNas server.

Agreed. But hard drives are cheap and my MacPro has six available slots internally. And any redundant storage system will require multiple HDDs. I prefer mirrored pairs or triplets over RAIDZ2.



Yes, this is an excellent option unless you already have a MacPro then you have a cheaper option.
Click to expand...

I repeat, ZFS not at it best implementation on ZEVO, Pool28 features are only implemented on Solaris-Openindiana and latest BSD distros (inherih by Freenas and Nas4Free).

Building a NAS have never been so easy and cheap, there are DIY NAS specific Enclosures (with hotswappable drive bays for about 130$, add an Mini-ITX mainboard (70-150$ dependeing cpu slected) and Ram (16GB enough for a 4x6TB extreme solution or 4GB if you want a 4x1.5TB solution), as OS I recommend Nas4Free, regarding the HDD size and category (cosumer grade are OK, but NAS or Enterprise Grade are the choice if you valuate your time and data) you will spend about 600- 3000$ on a solid NAS with 4bay hot Swappable HDD, and the best implementation of ZFS (poorl 28).

Aniway ZFS is an good choice wherever the way you decide (with or without RaidZ2), but only until Btrfs definition is ready (supposdly this year) which I assume will take the lead on large/safe storage solution.
 
Last edited:
Draeconis said:
ZFS uses a fair chunk of RAM whatever system you're on, when doing dedup or scrubbing.

Any implementation wanting do use RaidZ or RaidZ2 needs 4 drives minimum to perform well, that isn't a surprise either.

I have 4x 2Tb drives in RaidZ which snapshot to a FreeNAS 9.2.1.5 box with another RaidZ array.

Not sure what your point is?
Click to expand...

The point is that your FreeNAS box has Pool28, and dont take your's system ram.

I Have a 5x3TB Raidz2 Nas4free box as safety storage (my works and as target for my surveilance system, also does classic NAS cloud duty as bittorent), and an External 2x6tb thunderbolt enclosure with an pair of 4TB Raid 1, which are the ones where I store Live data), all are NAS classs drives, cosidring I'm using Raidz2/Raid1, a failure is not a nigthmare, In case some drive in my Nas4Free box fails, I'll replace all the pool with newer 4tb drives, one drive per week, or every 3 days to avoid stress on the survivor drives, and in case the failure is on my Raid1 thunderbolt box, Inmediately I copy the content to a new pair of fresh drives,

Other considerations, Unless you need the largest storage capacity, keep away very large HDD, instead as long your server is gtting old, replace periodically one drive with one newer with more capacity, don't wait for it to wear enough to fail due fatigue, so every 2 years you must double your capacity

----------

More, deduplication feature is valuable only if your media is expensive (as SSD) but if youre using cheap spinners drive, dont worth the expense on CPU/Ram.
 
MacZFS 74.3.3 predictably doesn't install on 10.10, will be moving over to OpenZFS 1.2.7 once 10.10 goes GM.
 
Just found this thread, and starting to consider ZFS for my own mac pro. I previously had 4x2TB drives in a unRaid box but decided I'd rather have them as local storage. I had hoped I could do RAID5 natively on OSX, but it looks like I'm restricted to mirroring -- plus can't use coreStorage to encrypt a osx mirror set.

Is there a OSX OpenZFS thats different from the MacZFS? I was under the impression that MacZFS was the OSX version/repository, but Draeconis comment has me confused.

Or if anyone has any OSX suggestions besides ZFS I'd be curious to know. Looks like my options are limited. I thought about softraid, but $130 is a bit steep for my simple usage.
 
MacZFS 74.3.3 is the last version of this software. It's an older design, based off of Apple's original source code to bring ZFS to OS X.

OpenZFSforOSX or O3X is a completely new project, built in part from the work done by the OpenZFS team. If you're looking to set up ZFS, ignore MacZFS and install O3X. They're currently testing 1.3.0rc4 which is promising.

In response to your RAID5 question, ZFS can create RAIDZ or RAIDZ2 arrays from 3-4 disks. It's similar to RAID-5, but doesn't suffer from the write hole issue.
 
Thanks! I see the openZFS on OSX stuff now - will give that a shot. I had just created a test mirror using MacZFS, but I'll rip it out and switch.

I did see the RAIDZ devices, which is probably what I'll use after doing more experimentation. Originally when I read about ZFS I thought you could add/pull drives out at will, but now my understanding is you'd really only want to add/pull mirrors or raid groups, which is less practical when you've only got 4-5 drives. I can see how it would work great when you got a ton of disks in an enterprise setup...
 
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