Did Apple kill ZFS?

[zombitronic]

If you check out Google's cache of the old Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard page, ZFS read and write support was touted as a new feature.

For business-critical server deployments, Snow Leopard Server adds read and write support for the high-performance, 128-bit ZFS file system, which includes advanced features such as storage pooling, data redundancy, automatic error correction, dynamic volume expansion, and snapshots.

Unfortunately, ZFS is nowhere to be found on the new Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard File Systems page. Is anyone else bummed out about this?

 

[foidulus]

I know I am, ZFS is amazing, but it seems that there aren't a lot of devices out there that support it. I was hoping Snow Leopard server would allow us to automate a ton of our backups in a very fail-proof way, but it doesn't look good...

However, I'm not sure at this point whether it was Apple's decision or not. Oracle is now the new boss of Sun, and they may have been the ones who put the kibosh on the relationship....

 

[mrfrosty]

If it has been dropped i'd regard that as a big fail. ZFS is a true killer feature.

 

[dazey]

I noticed this drop too and was exited about zfs. With the growing amount of critical data I think its well over due having a filesystem that supports error correction. It was a big selling point for me.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I think Apple still wants to implement ZFS in Mac OS X eventually. They haven't killed it per se, just postponed its implementation until 10.7 due to issues with the current implementation - such as boot support being somewhat sketchy still, and a few minor compatibility glitches.

 

[BornAgainMac]

It didn't need to be in 10.6. I think 10.7 (probably previewed in June of 2010) will show a new cat with this and 299 other new features.

 

[geoffreak]

And how many times has Apple killed ZFS now?

 

[Great Dave]

It didn't need to be in 10.6...

Is that what you said when Apple dropped it in 10.5, too?

I wish Apple wouldn't do this...

No ZFS - that's dumb!

 

[Jim Campbell]

No ZFS - that's dumb!

Not if it doesn't bloody work, it isn't!

Cheers

Jim

 

[steviem]

No, sun did by not releasing it under the GPL.

 

[mrfrosty]

Sorry but ZFS clearly does work, both on Solaris and various flavours of linux via NFuse. For a company with Apple's resources a port to OSX is relatively trivial (especially considering where we already having unofficial r/w support !!). I don't care if i can't boot on it. The O/S takes around 10Gb thats nothing to re-install.....8Tb of data is a different story however.

The only reason I see Apple pulling this is because they hate me.

 

[belvdr]

For a personal use only computer, NTFS or HFS+ is fine with me. ZFS means nothing at all.

My guess is there are more typical users that feel this way than the other way around.

 

[zombitronic]

ZFS means nothing at all.

My guess is there are more typical users that feel this way than the other way around.

For most users, that's likely true. The fact that ZFS was supposed to be in Snow Leopard Server, not Client, is evidence that this feature was not targeted towards typical users. Any computer running as a data server with expandable internal storage, however, would benefit greatly from ZFS, especially with storage pooling and dynamic volume expansion.

 

[jaw04005]

For most users, that's likely true. The fact that ZFS was supposed to be in Snow Leopard Server, not Client, is evidence that this feature was not targeted towards typical users.

Yet anyway. They did the same thing with journaling. Introducing it as a feature of 10.2 Server* (and accessible in the client via the command line only), and making it the default option in 10.3 Panther client.

*Actually, it was released in the 10.2.2 point update to 10.2 Server. So, you never know, ZFS may come back in a later point update.

 

[nuckinfutz]

ZFS FTL !

ZFS for the Loss!

When we have affordable options for multi-bay storage ZFS will be important. Right now a majority of Macs sold have one hard drive bay.

ZFS is using a shotgun to kill a fly

 

[zombitronic]

When we have affordable options for multi-bay storage ZFS will be important. Right now a majority of Macs sold have one hard drive bay.

While that is true, a majority of those Macs are probably not running Server. The Servers are likely on Mac Pros or Xserves. Those machines aren't exactly affordable to the average consumer, but those are the users who would be using Server and would benefit from ZFS.

A SAN would be the perfect environment for ZFS. Again, not cheap, but it would be another reason for network admins to choose OS X Server over Solaris or Linux. I don't get why it has to be affordable to the majority of users to be important. Xsan isn't affordable to the majority of Mac users. That doesn't make Xsan unimportant.

 

[nuckinfutz]

While that is true, a majority of those Macs are probably not running Server. The Servers are likely on Mac Pros or Xserves. Those machines aren't exactly affordable to the average consumer, but those are the users who would be using Server and would benefit from ZFS.

A SAN would be the perfect environment for ZFS. Again, not cheap, but it would be another reason for network admins to choose OS X Server over Solaris or Linux. I don't get why it has to be affordable to the majority of users to be important. Xsan isn't affordable to the majority of Mac users. That doesn't make Xsan unimportant.

I'm a ZFS fan but it just feels a bit early to be worried about it right now. I'm curious to Apple's reasons for pulling it. Could it be the lawsuit with NetCrapp or Oracle? We'll find out soon enough.

If mature ZFS comes in 10.7 I won't mind at all. By then SSD will be more prevalent and we'll have even more storage options and hopefully even larger HDD drives.

 

[Infrared]

I'm a ZFS fan but it just feels a bit early to be worried about it right now. I'm curious to Apple's reasons for pulling it. Could it be the lawsuit with NetCrapp or Oracle? We'll find out soon enough.

If mature ZFS comes in 10.7 I won't mind at all. By then SSD will be more prevalent and we'll have even more storage options and hopefully even larger HDD drives.

ZFS will be ancient by the time Apple implements it!

Apple are seriously lagging the competition in a number of areas.
They're only now trailing in with a 64-bit kernel ages after Linux
and Microsoft had one. Their firmware is based on the outdated
EFI 1.1 standard. There is no blu-ray support yet. The list simply
goes on and on.

Apple really need to get up to speed because, from where I'm
standing, OS X looks more and more like the legacy operating
system.

 

[nuckinfutz]

ZFS will be ancient by the time Apple implements it!

Apple are seriously lagging the competition in a number of areas.
They're only now trailing in with a 64-bit kernel ages after Linux
and Microsoft had one. Their firmware is based on the outdated
EFI 1.1 standard. There is no blu-ray support yet. The list simply
goes on and on.

Apple really need to get up to speed because, from where I'm
standing, OS X looks more and more like the legacy operating
system.

It's a filesystem, it's not something you want to rush into production

I think OS that have high penetration in the server arena had to move to 64-bit a while ago at the kernel level.

Blu-ray ? Non factor optical technology has been in legacy mode for a while

If you want to impress me you should be debating the merits of Apple's Grand Central Dispatch with that of the Linux or BSD schedulers or discussing kernels at a more granular level.

I'm not one of your light duty computing buddies that's going to say

"oh wow man...64-bit is twice what 32-bit is huh dude"

You want to tell me that that OS X is behind you better bring your hard hat.

 

[tedsmith3rd]

No, sun did by not releasing it under the GPL.

1. Sun released ZFS under the CDDL
2. The CDDL doesn't prevent anyone from implementing code in a closed-source project.
3. Even if it was GPL (it's not), Apple has plenty of straight GPL code already included in the OS, have a look.

 

[belvdr]

1. Sun released ZFS under the CDDL
2. The CDDL doesn't prevent anyone from implementing code in a closed-source project.
3. Even if it was GPL (it's not), Apple has plenty of straight GPL code already included in the OS, have a look.

But any modifications to the ZFS code would require them to provide said code.

 

[belvdr]

You want to tell me that that OS X is behind you better bring your hard hat.

Only thing I wish they'd fix is the ability to run one application multiple times. It's a hack to get it to work. Any other OS post-1996 can do this, except OS X.

Did they ever fix the refresh issue in Finder where disk space and such was not updated?

 

[nuckinfutz]

Only thing I wish they'd fix is the ability to run one application multiple times. It's a hack to get it to work. Any other OS post-1996 can do this, except OS X.

Did they ever fix the refresh issue in Finder where disk space and such was not updated?

No there's something I've heard before and never got a good answer to. Running two instances of an app. I may have to do a little searching to see if anyone has found a good way to do this.

 

[tedsmith3rd]

But any modifications to the ZFS code would require them to provide said code.

Why do you think that would that be a problem? They already do that for the rest of darwin... including the HFS+ filesystem and all the other filesystems OS X supports.

 

[Infrared]

It's a filesystem, it's not something you want to rush into production

They've had years already.

They are not even close to rushing.

Snails are moving faster.