On: Preserving data integrity: A ZFS-inspired storage system

[fmajid]

I understand the licensing issues, but having a system with 4 components (ext4, dm-crypt, mdraid, dm-integrity) instead of a single integrated one (ZFS) can hardly be said to be simpler. On a distribution like Ubuntu, adding and maintaining ZFS is completely painless.

[throw0101a → fmajid]

> I understand the licensing issues, but having a system with 4 components […]

I am reminded of ZFS co-creator Jeff Bonwick's "Rampant Layering Violation?" (then-Sun) weblog post:

* https://web.archive.org/web/20070508214221/http://blogs.sun....

* https://blogs.oracle.com/bonwick/rampant-layering-violation

[nix23 → throw0101a]

Sometimes A monolith is "better" than the "Unix-way", think of kernels, network-stack and Filesystems (Btrfs,ZFS) and databases.

[throw0101a → nix23]

Well, ZFS isn't exactly monolithic if you look under the hood: it has the ZPL (files, directories), DMU (objects, transactions on those objects), SPA (actual disk I/O).

A potato-quality video from 2008 with Moore and Bonwick, the creators (timestamped to relevant section):

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRoUC9P1PmA&t=14m19s

[magicalhippo → throw0101a]

Possibly less potato-quality video about the same:

https://youtu.be/MsY-BafQgj4?t=442 (OpenZFS Basics by Matt Ahrens and George Wilson)

[nix23 → throw0101a]

>Well, ZFS isn't exactly monolithic if you look under the hood: it has the ZPL

True, but i meant one monolithic Storage-System.

Kernel's are also not monolithic if you look under the hood.

[throw0101a → fmajid]

> On a distribution like Ubuntu, adding and maintaining ZFS is completely painless.

There are packages for most distros (they generally leverage DKMS):

* https://zfsonlinux.org

[oarsinsync → throw0101a]

> > On a distribution like Ubuntu, adding and maintaining ZFS is completely painless.

> There are packages for most distros (they generally leverage DKMS):

As a Debian user using ZFS, I can assure you that it's absolutely not painless. Definitely worth the pain, however. (Same story with Wireguard + Debian currently too)

Ubuntu actually ships ZFS (and Wireguard) in their main line. Debian (and others that depend on DKMS) do not.

[pnutjam → fmajid]

You mean BTRFS... ;)