The ZFS on Linux with FUSE
Zed House
© Bertrand Benoit, Fotolia
License issues prevent the integration of ZFS with the Linux kernel, but Linux users can try the highly praised filesystem in userspace.
Sun's Zettabyte File System (ZFS) [1] was officially introduced to (Open)Solaris [2] in June 2006, replacing the legacy UFS (Unix File System). ZFS is a 128-bit filesystem with a number of interesting features, such as improved safeguards against defective disks and the ability to manage large numbers of files. Because currently there are no 128-bit data types, ZFS uses the first 64 bits and pads the rest of the structure, ignoring the unused bits in normal operations. The 128-bit design will make it easier to migrate to 128-bit types some time in the future.
The Logical Volume Manager (LVM) lets ZFS pool physical media (drives or partitions). Native RAID functionality allows users with more than two hard disks to set up a RAID pool. (Compared with RAID 5, RAID Z in ZFS has faster write access and is safer if your hardware fails.)
ZFS's list of capabilities includes an automatic snapshot feature to save filesystem states. ZFS only stores the vector to the previous snapshot. This design lets the filesystem create "clones." In contrast to a snapshot, a clone supports read and write access. ZFS also makes it easy to add new hard disks or replace defective disks on the fly. Online compression, which you might remember from NTFS, is another useful extra.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.
-
Linux Kernel 6.15 Now Available
The latest Linux kernel is now available with several new features/improvements and the usual bug fixes.
-
Microsoft Makes Surprising WSL Announcement
In a move that might surprise some users, Microsoft has made Windows Subsystem for Linux open source.
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.
-
IBM Announces Powerhouse Linux Server
IBM has unleashed a seriously powerful Linux server with the LinuxONE Emperor 5.
-
Plasma Ends LTS Releases
The KDE Plasma development team is doing away with the LTS releases for a good reason.