“Apple has clarified reports regarding the use of Sun’s ZFS file system in Leopard, confirming that ZFS is present in the operating system but that Apple has not yet made it the default file system,” Tom Krazit reports in CNET’s News Blog.
“Leopard will support two file systems, the HFS+ technology currently found in Mac OS X, as well as ZFS, a next-generation file system developed by Sun and unveiled in 2005. However, HFS+ will remain the default option,” Krazit reports.
“At some point, Apple will likely make ZFS the default file system for Mac OS X, but Sun hasn’t even gotten around to doing that yet for Solaris 10,” Krazit reports. “These transitions can take years.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Bev M.” for the heads up.]
Thomas Claburn reports for InformationWeek, “ZFS ‘is only available a read-only option from the command line,’ according to an Apple spokesperson.”
“Brian Croll, senior director of Mac OS X Product Marketing explained, ‘ZFS is not the default file system for Leopard. We are exploring it as a file system option for high-end storage systems with really large storage. As a result, we have included ZFS — a read-only copy of ZFS — in Leopard. Read-only means that at a later date, if there are ZFS volumes, those systems would be able to read ZFS volumes. You cannot write data into the system. It will allow you to read ZFS volumes later,'” Claburn reports.
Claburn reports, “Asked whether ZFS might be implemented for Apple’s Xserve rack mountable server line, Croll said, ‘Where we head in the future, we’re not able to talk about.'”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]
[UPDATED: 11:59pm EDT: Added InformationWeek excerpts and link.]
The next question is whether we can safely and easily use ZFS if we want to once Leopard is available. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
It is going to be “” read only “” in the ZFS format. Years away!
Seriously, this whole ZFS business is starting to annoy me.
For the everyday user, WHAT difference is this “new” “innovative” file system going to make? What are the advantages in a nutshell?
Sun CEO: \”Mac OS X will use ZFS\”
Apple: \”No it won\’t\”
Sun CEO: \”My mistake, Mac OS X will not use ZFS\”
Apple: \”Yes it will\”
Meanwhile deep in Cupertino someplace…
Apple Programmer: \”Hey what are you working on?\”
Apple Programmer 2: \”Not supposed to tell, violate NDA\”
Apple Programmer: \”Did you get the vunerability in Dashcode memo?\”
Apple Programmer 2: \”Can\’t say, violate NDA\”
Apple Programmer: \”Well, how about those Yankee\’s?\”
Apple Programmer 2: \”May violate NDA, will talk to marketing to confirm\”
Apple Programmer: \”Shit, I\’m canned for sure\”
> It is going to be “” read only “” in the ZFS format. Years away!
You don’t mean “read only.” It wouldn’t be much use if you could only read off it, and not write to it. What are you going to do, buy a hard drive with data already on it?
THis just means that Apple is not ready yet to talk about Sun’s ZFS – maybe they’ll be a server alliance of some sort -with good behavior from Sun, we’ll see what happens
Actually Mac OS X supports much more than 2 file systems. FAT is an example of read-write file system supported by OS X. NTFS, on the other hand is an example of read-only file system.
Schwartz screwed the pooch here. Whatever plans Apple may have had for ZFS in Leopard, you can bet that they were postponed when he tried to get some personal attention by preannouncing ZFS on Mac OS X.
-jcr
Schwartz was right after all. Now all you lot who pissed and moaned about him, —– give ‘im a kiss.
gooney googoo
ZFS can be rather difficult to understand. Here are the advantages of ZFS in a nutshell
* Pooled Storage Model
* Always consistent on disk
* Protection from data corruption
* Live data scrubbing
* Instantaneous snapshots and clones
* Fast native backup and restore
* Highly scalable
* Built in compression
* Simplified administration model
I got this information from this page:
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/zfs/
which has more information and video demonstrations of ZFS in action.
NeoVoyager: Very simple—if ZFS ever gets fully implemented in OS X the “everyday user” will largely be able to forget about the file system. Backups–taken care of. Having to check the file system after every time the power blinks out–no longer needed. Having, as I am staring at right now, 8 icons for various hard drives mounted in my machine and attached to it through various means–no more. Just one icon saying Macintosh and when more room is needed just attach another drive and the new hard drive room is added to total space available to you, without having to worry about it being /Volume/NewDrive, etc.–like when you add a new memory stick to your machine, the total RAM increases and you don’t have to instruct any program, “Hey, load into that new RAM stick.”
This was all explained in the last ZFS thread.
ZFS has a load of other features that make it very attractice to enterprises that needed craploads of storage, but that’s the stuff that would effect the “everyday user”–which nowadays is a guy at home who just needs extra space to store porn.
Stop whining.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
It will be the default file system in OS XI.
Posted by inkhead at http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=3742357#post3742357
A couple of notes from Moscone WWDC (woohoo!)
Menubar transparency can be turned off
However after trying it out, you never want to, it makes you more focused, and less distracted. I thought it was ugly, then tried it. It’s actually very good for productivity.
It’s fast.
Stacks are fantastic.
The new finder is absolutely the best part. How many years have we wanted a cocoa finder? It’s HERE!!!!! Browsing network shares is no longer met with delays, it’s using the fast Unix finally. I can try to mount 10 shares without every seeing a cursor.
Proper multi-threaded support. No more pauses when clicking on the menubar or anything else. Apps keep chugging along.
No more beachball so far.
It’s the perfect OS for productivity. No crazy changes, just refinement to the extreme.
It’s a beautiful thing!
DVD player has been able to play HD-DVDs for a long time. It has blu-ray and HD-DVD settings in prefs now.
Dock works fine on the sides, 3D but the icons are sideways (proper) with shadow. Looks awesome on the side. I’d post pictures but I’d rather not be in Apple prison.
spread,
thanks for the informative post!
When you consider how many copies are out there in the hands of developers, then there’ll be more and more ‘reports’ (like spread’s / inkhead’s) leaking out about Leopard, which can’t be bad.
@Toby
Leopard dvd images already appearing on warez sites! Probably on BT as well so won’t be long before non-developers get a chance to try it on their own…
Ron,
It seems that you don’t realize that Schwartz fscked over everyone at Sun and Apple who’s worked on bringing up ZFS on Mac OS X. Not to mention, we customers who could really use it.
-jcr
spread,
You are off topic, but your information is so interesting that it’s OK — hell, it’s great that you posted it. I’m panting — tongue out — like a leopard, waiting for Leopard.
As far as ZFS is concerned, Apple will keep working at bringing ZFS into OS X as a fully supported, and perhaps eventually the default file system. It is good that Apple is being cautious. It just takes time to make such a massive change to Apple’s software and hardware architectures that ZFS will bring. I suspect that the speed issues will be addressed in the next few years with help from Intel’s multicore/manycore CPUs. I can easily see a special core included to handle file system issues under ZFS.
ZFS will be a killer feature in the enterprise. You might see a full blown ZFS in the server version of OS X first – or will it be OS XI, by then?
@ken1w
ZFS read-only support means that you can read a ZFS file system on your network. That may not sound very useful, but it does mean that large data stores using ZFS are available to OS/X clients. I guess its a first step – but it can’t be a huge second step to format and write ZFS formatted volumes. The only thing you can deduce from this is that ZFS is coming, at some stage…
Steve Jobs pulled ZFS from what it could be in Leopard because that a$$hole from Sun pre-announced it.
Steve must have been steaming – and he pulled it from the presentation and probably was going to pull from the evaluation copies but it was too late.
Betcha Sun is eating crow and apologizing to Steve in a big way.
Steve should buy Sun and demote the CEO to the receptionist desk.
That will teach him and anyone else to ruin Steve’s grand plans.
HAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAAA!!!!!!
Sun, Sun, Sun…. Why do you NOT spoil Apple’s secrets??? THIS IS WHY.
READ ONLY FROM THE COMMAND LINE!!! HAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHHH!!H!!!!!!! HA!
oh, this is good…
it was NOT changed because it was leaked, it isn’t ready. you can’t even boot from it yet.
it is possible that Apple will use ZFS as a big part of time machine. it is also possible that they don’t need too. either way, when it is ready they will release it. that may be october, and that may be 2011. for most people, the difference between ZFS and HPFS+ is almost zero. if time machine is well done, half the benefits will be there without it.
relax……
MW, good things come to those who wait, even if they have to wait a little “longer”
btw
I am a Sun hippie
@shen: ” for most people, the difference between ZFS and HPFS+ is almost zero. if time machine is well done, half the benefits will be there without it.”
Wrong.
Pooled storage alone is hugely worth it. The ability to treat all of your multiple drives as a single volume with zero user level administration involved.. that’s huge. Right now if I use my main drive for storing my iTunes library or photo library and run out of room, I have to physically copy it to another drive and manually set it up there, with pooled storage I’d never have to do that.
Don’t get me wrong, Time Machine is great and I’m hugely looking forward to it, but a file system that has built in error checking and monitors my files for corruption is also awesome.