Becoming OS Independent with OpenZFS
Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2021 12:10 pm
Goal: To ensure easy migration of personal data (along with metadata) when changing operating systems, by using OpenZFS.
I had to stop using Linux to use some non-Linux apps and had switched to Windows. After Microsoft introduced forced updates and increased spying on its users in Windows, I migrated to macOS in the hopes things would be better in that ecosystem. But they too have been increasingly abusing our user trust on privacy, with the latest action being introducing a backdoor in macOS Big Sur's network API's that allow select Apple software to bypass all application firewalls to aid their data collection and spying. As such, I am yet again forced to consider migrating to Linux or FreeBSD in the future.
After past experiences with different OSes, I had opted to using a lot of multi-platform opensource applications to ensure switching to another OS is as painless as possible. I now want to consider OpenZFS too for this same purpose.
The basic idea is to use the default OS filesystem in the system disk (a small 128 GB SSD drive that will have whatever OS and all applications), and use another internal hard-disk with ZFS filesystem to store all user (application) and personal data. I will also have multiple external hard disk, again with ZFS, to take backups and store unimportant media files.
To this end, I have the following doubts:
(I am posting here because I am still using macOS Mojave and plan to stick with it till Apple drops support for it and stops the security update. So my first experiments with OpenZFS will be on macOS).
I had to stop using Linux to use some non-Linux apps and had switched to Windows. After Microsoft introduced forced updates and increased spying on its users in Windows, I migrated to macOS in the hopes things would be better in that ecosystem. But they too have been increasingly abusing our user trust on privacy, with the latest action being introducing a backdoor in macOS Big Sur's network API's that allow select Apple software to bypass all application firewalls to aid their data collection and spying. As such, I am yet again forced to consider migrating to Linux or FreeBSD in the future.
After past experiences with different OSes, I had opted to using a lot of multi-platform opensource applications to ensure switching to another OS is as painless as possible. I now want to consider OpenZFS too for this same purpose.
The basic idea is to use the default OS filesystem in the system disk (a small 128 GB SSD drive that will have whatever OS and all applications), and use another internal hard-disk with ZFS filesystem to store all user (application) and personal data. I will also have multiple external hard disk, again with ZFS, to take backups and store unimportant media files.
To this end, I have the following doubts:
- Is this idea flawed in any way?
- I know OpenZFS supports compression and encryption. Does it support tagging or labeling files and directories, like HFS+ or NTFS does?
- Does the OpenZFS driver add support for this tagging or labeling in the respective file browsers of the OS (e.g. Explorer or Finder)?
- How much of the OpenZFS is GUI driven and integrated with the OS (e.g. formatting a drive using macOS Disk Utility)?
- How much attention does OpenZFS need after the first setup?
(I am posting here because I am still using macOS Mojave and plan to stick with it till Apple drops support for it and stops the security update. So my first experiments with OpenZFS will be on macOS).