Sunday, March 20, 2011

ZFS file server with Solaris 11

Why I choose zfs filesystem for my home file server

  • Functionality (deduplication, encryption, compression, snapshot, replication, clone, iscsi target builtin, etc)
  • Block level checksum (say goodbye to silent data corruption)
    • Report read error and corrects it if you have a mirror or parity raid. (must have with ssd technology)
  • Use ssd for intelligent “l2arc” caching
  • Always consistent on disk
  • Good startup to learn about zfs read: The last word in file systems http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/zfs_lc_preso.pdf
  • Because it's cool to learn something new

Why don’t choose zfs for file server

  • You don’t want to have a dedicated server for storage at home
    • For standard home usage a cheap nas with raid1 do the job
  • You’re a performance freak and just do sequential read and write and don’t care about silent corruption and zfs functionalities
  • You don’t want to invest your time to understand and have fun with zfs
My zfs file server hardware

  • Amd x2 5050e 45W
  • Motherboard “SAPPHIRE PI-AM2RS780G”
  • 8gb ram
  • Intel pro 1000/100/10
  • 1 x 250gb “For system boot... not in mirror yet”
  • 3 x 1.5tb raidz “for data”
  • 1 x 40gb intel ssd x25-v “For cache l2arc” Read my benchmark

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