“Finally, a modern file system on a consumer OS,” Robin Harris blogs for ZDNet. “As if Grand Central weren’t enough bad news for Microsoft, now they have ZFS to contend with. Building a reliable, high-performance file system takes years and Microsoft doesn’t have years to respond.”
MacDailyNews Note: Snow Leopard will deliver unrivaled support for multi-core processors with “Grand Central,” making it easy for developers to create programs that take full advantage of the power of multi-core Macs. Find out more about Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard here and Mac OS X Snow Leopard here.
“The formal announcement is for Snow Leopard server, which is how Apple introduces new file systems. HFS+ first arrived on a server version as well,” Harris writes.
“Who cares? Anyone who stores data should,” Harris writes. “Microsoft’s NTFS is 20 year old technology borrowed from DEC. Fine for small disks and puny CPUs. Not so great for today’s data intensive systems and applications.”
“For all of Microsoft’s fine talk about innovation they don’t do squat unless someone else does it first,” Harris writes.
“ZFS always knows if the block is correct and/or corrupt… the entire data store is self-validating. You’ll never have to wonder if all your data is correct again. It is,” Harris explains.
“ZFS eliminates the whole volume concept. Add a disk or five to your system and it joins your storage pool. More capacity. Not more management,” Harris explains.
“It would be nice if Microsoft were driving innovation and reliability, but – like General Motors – they prefer to rest of their laurels. And like General Motors, they are facing a long and painful decline if they don’t get their act together,” Harris writes.
MacDailyNews Take: Too late.
Harris continues, “GM says they are proud that 1 in 4 cars sold in America are GM – but the number used to be 3 out of 5. Microsoft is rightfully proud of their 90% market share. But that share can change – as it has for IE – and they have nowhere to go but down. As users we benefit from the competition. Kudos to Apple for bringing the latest technology to consumers.”
Much more, including links to more info about ZFS, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “winski” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: Back on ,January 10, 2005, we took a bit of flack from some readers for our Take, in which we have always believed and therefore reprint here:
As we have always said, even as many short-sightedly waved (and continue to wave) the white flag, the war is not over. And, yes, we shall prevail. For the naysayers: In 1929, Ford held just over 61% of the U.S. market for automobiles. GM’s market share stood at just 12%. Ford was thought to be invincible, with GM regarded as a niche auto maker. Probably, some analyst at the time said, “The reality is, long term, GM will always be a niche player.” But, in 1936, just seven years later, Ford held just 22% of the market for new automobiles while General Motors held a 43% share. No company is invincible. Not even Microsoft.
