07-09-2017, 01:03 PM
ZFS (Zettabyte FileSystem) is a file system designed by Sun Microsystems for the Solaris Operating System. ZFS is a 128-bit file system, so it can handle 18 billion million times more data than 64-bit systems. ZFS is implemented as an open source file system under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL).
ZFS features include support for high storage capacities, integration of file system concepts and volume management, snapshots and copy clones into writing, continuous integrity check and auto repair, RAID-Z, etc. In addition, Solaris ZFS implements intelligent pre-capture, performing read-ahead sequential data transmission, and can adapt its read behavior on the fly for more complex access patterns.
To eliminate bottlenecks and increase the speed of readings and writes, ZFS analyzes data from all available storage devices, balancing I / O, and maximizing throughput. And, as you add disks to the storage pool, the Solaris ZFS immediately starts allocating blocks from those devices, increasing the effective bandwidth as each device is added. This means that system administrators no longer need to monitor storage devices to see if they are causing I / O bottlenecks.
Anyone who has lost important files, has run out of space on a partition, spent the weekends adding new storage to servers, attempted to grow or reduce a file system, or experienced data corruption knows there is room for improvement in file systems and volume managers. Solaris ZFS is designed from scratch to meet the emerging needs of a general-purpose local file system that spans the desktop to the data center. Solaris ZFS offers a dramatic breakthrough in data management with an innovative approach to data integrity, near-zero management, and a welcome file system integration and volume management capabilities.
The centerpiece of this new architecture is the concept of a virtual storage pool that decouples the file system from physical storage in the same way that virtual memory abstracts the address space from physical memory, allowing a much more efficient use of the storage devices. In Solaris ZFS, space is dynamically shared between multiple file systems from a single storage pool and partitioned from the pool as requested by file systems. Physical storage can be aggregated or removed from storage pools dynamically, without disrupting services, providing new levels of flexibility, availability, and performance.
And in terms of scalability, Solaris ZFS is a 128-bit file system. Its theoretical limits are truly mind-boggling - 2128 bytes of storage, and 264 for everything else, such as file systems, snapshots, directory entries, devices, and more. And ZFS implements an improvement in RAID-5, RAID-Z, which uses parity, scratch and atomic operations to ensure the reconstruction of damaged data. It is ideal for managing industry standard storage servers such as the Sun Fire 4500.
ZFS is more than just a file system. In addition to the traditional role of data storage, ZFS also includes advanced volume management that provides clustered storage through a collection of one or more devices. These clustered storage areas can be used for ZFS file systems or exported through a ZFS Emulated Volume (ZVOL) device to support traditional file systems such as UFS. ZFS uses the concept of clustered storage that completely eliminates the old notion of volumes. According to SUN, this feature makes for storage what the VM did for the memory subsystem. In ZFS everything is transactional, that is, this keeps the data always consistent on the disk, eliminates almost all restrictions in the I / O order and allows huge performance gains.
ZFS features include support for high storage capacities, integration of file system concepts and volume management, snapshots and copy clones into writing, continuous integrity check and auto repair, RAID-Z, etc. In addition, Solaris ZFS implements intelligent pre-capture, performing read-ahead sequential data transmission, and can adapt its read behavior on the fly for more complex access patterns.
To eliminate bottlenecks and increase the speed of readings and writes, ZFS analyzes data from all available storage devices, balancing I / O, and maximizing throughput. And, as you add disks to the storage pool, the Solaris ZFS immediately starts allocating blocks from those devices, increasing the effective bandwidth as each device is added. This means that system administrators no longer need to monitor storage devices to see if they are causing I / O bottlenecks.
Anyone who has lost important files, has run out of space on a partition, spent the weekends adding new storage to servers, attempted to grow or reduce a file system, or experienced data corruption knows there is room for improvement in file systems and volume managers. Solaris ZFS is designed from scratch to meet the emerging needs of a general-purpose local file system that spans the desktop to the data center. Solaris ZFS offers a dramatic breakthrough in data management with an innovative approach to data integrity, near-zero management, and a welcome file system integration and volume management capabilities.
The centerpiece of this new architecture is the concept of a virtual storage pool that decouples the file system from physical storage in the same way that virtual memory abstracts the address space from physical memory, allowing a much more efficient use of the storage devices. In Solaris ZFS, space is dynamically shared between multiple file systems from a single storage pool and partitioned from the pool as requested by file systems. Physical storage can be aggregated or removed from storage pools dynamically, without disrupting services, providing new levels of flexibility, availability, and performance.
And in terms of scalability, Solaris ZFS is a 128-bit file system. Its theoretical limits are truly mind-boggling - 2128 bytes of storage, and 264 for everything else, such as file systems, snapshots, directory entries, devices, and more. And ZFS implements an improvement in RAID-5, RAID-Z, which uses parity, scratch and atomic operations to ensure the reconstruction of damaged data. It is ideal for managing industry standard storage servers such as the Sun Fire 4500.
ZFS is more than just a file system. In addition to the traditional role of data storage, ZFS also includes advanced volume management that provides clustered storage through a collection of one or more devices. These clustered storage areas can be used for ZFS file systems or exported through a ZFS Emulated Volume (ZVOL) device to support traditional file systems such as UFS. ZFS uses the concept of clustered storage that completely eliminates the old notion of volumes. According to SUN, this feature makes for storage what the VM did for the memory subsystem. In ZFS everything is transactional, that is, this keeps the data always consistent on the disk, eliminates almost all restrictions in the I / O order and allows huge performance gains.