Fedora 16 May Default To Btrfs File-System

[johnc]

Wouldn't it be easier for Oracle to make ZFS available under the GPL rather than going through all this trouble with a new filesystem? Or do they have good reasons to maintain their current ZFS license?

I would feel a hell of a lot more comfortable with a mature filesystem like ZFS than dabbling with btrfs based on some of the postings in this thread. The benchmarks didn't seem too impressive either.

[devsk]

BTRFS is a hack. And devs have no time to analyze existing issues while they go on a binge adding new features while trying to play catch up with ZFS features. Have a look at this one and see how many devs responded or analyzed the issue: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16508

BTRFS is years away from being usable. And my prediction for it is that it would be dead before it gets widely adopted anywhere! Oracle has no reason to continue with two filesystems.

[johnc]

BTRFS is years away from being usable. And my prediction for it is that it would be dead before it gets widely adopted anywhere! Oracle has no reason to continue with two filesystems.

In a previous thread you've mentioned that you have used zfs-fuse on linux and ZFS on Solaris... In terms of functionality and performance (which, admittedly can't be truly measured due to the different OSes), how similar would you say they are?

[Vax456]

Wouldn't it be easier for Oracle to make ZFS available under the GPL rather than going through all this trouble with a new filesystem? Or do they have good reasons to maintain their current ZFS license?

They probably don't want to put ZFS under the GPLv3 (or compatible) license, if they're legally allowed to anyway. ZFS is Solaris' biggest selling point and since it's under Oracle's control, they want to make as much money off of it as possible.

My guess is if they can't make enough money off of Solaris, maybe they'll stop its development and concentrate on BTRFS, depending on how tightly integrated ZFS is with Solaris. If its easily portable, maybe they'll just axe BTRFS and put ZFS under the GPL.

[kraftman]

BTRFS is years away from being usable. And my prediction for it is that it would be dead before it gets widely adopted anywhere! Oracle has no reason to continue with two filesystems.

Bullshit. It's being used in Meego and will be used in the Fedora 16. Are you Oracle's boss or something to say what reasons they have or not? It's more probable they care a lot more about btrfs, because when btrfs reaches stability they can simply forget about solaris and concentrate on Linux. ZFS is unlikely to be included into Linux kernel due to its design. So, if they really have no reason to continue with two filesystems btrfs is the winner. Btw. what features are missing in btrfs compared to ZFS at this point?

[devsk]

In a previous thread you've mentioned that you have used zfs-fuse on linux and ZFS on Solaris... In terms of functionality and performance (which, admittedly can't be truly measured due to the different OSes), how similar would you say they are?

ZFS can do all that BTRFS can do, and more! ZFS is ahead of BTRFS in every aspect.

I have recently moved from zfs-fuse to native ZFS on Linux. And I am never going to BTRFS.... The zfs on linux project is already very usable. Have a read: http://zfsonlinux.org/

If you decide to try zfs on linux, use the latest master. And only kernels 2.6.38.8 and less are supported.

[devsk]

Bullshit. It's being used in Meego and will be used in the Fedora 16. Are you Oracle's boss or something to say what reasons they have or not? It's more probable they care a lot more about btrfs, because when btrfs reaches stability they can simply forget about solaris and concentrate on Linux. ZFS is unlikely to be included into Linux kernel due to its design. So, if they really have no reason to continue with two filesystems btrfs is the winner. Btw. what features are missing in btrfs compared to ZFS at this point?

After years in development, you really have to see how much stability it has gained. Just go look at the bugs (I linked to one). Basic things are broken.

Apart from the many useful features (actual use of checksums, RAIDZ, dedup come to mind) you can find by just googling, one of the basic features for an enterprise FS is missing: reliability! If a random user can kill the FS AND the kernel by just creating few large files, that's DOS! And I mean KILL! You got to reset your server when this happens.

Go read the bug reports and mailing lists, and educate yourself!

[devsk]

They probably don't want to put ZFS under the GPLv3 (or compatible) license, if they're legally allowed to anyway. ZFS is Solaris' biggest selling point and since it's under Oracle's control, they want to make as much money off of it as possible.

My guess is if they can't make enough money off of Solaris, maybe they'll stop its development and concentrate on BTRFS, depending on how tightly integrated ZFS is with Solaris. If its easily portable, maybe they'll just axe BTRFS and put ZFS under the GPL.

Have a look at zfs on linux page I linked to in my previous post. It is portable enough, because its working already! I am using zfs on linux on my desktop/server.

[curaga]

@devsk

I'm curious, is ZFS like btrfs in the aspect that it uses obscene amounts of space for its metadata?

That is pretty much why I won't be using btrfs, among the other reasons.

[kraftman]

After years in development, you really have to see how much stability it has gained. Just go look at the bugs (I linked to one). Basic things are broken.

Apart from the many useful features (actual use of checksums, RAIDZ, dedup come to mind) you can find by just googling, one of the basic features for an enterprise FS is missing: reliability! If a random user can kill the FS AND the kernel by just creating few large files, that's DOS! And I mean KILL! You got to reset your server when this happens.

Go read the bug reports and mailing lists, and educate yourself!

I just found an old comparison - ZFS compared to btrfs in 2.6.33 and ZFS had a significant lead when comes to features. It's also more reliable at this point. However, ZFS is also buggy and has/had bugs that can eat your data. Go read the bug reports and mailing lists, and educate yourself. Oh, wait. Is there any ZFS solaris mailing list available to public?