macOS: ZFS vs. Softraid vs. APFS+backup?

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macOS: ZFS vs. Softraid vs. APFS+backup?

Postby novice » Sat Jul 10, 2021 10:14 am

Hi there,

I am debating if using ZFS vs. Softraid vs. APFS+backup on my incoming m1 iMac + external 4 bay enclosure [1] + 4 x 8TB 870 QVO SSD, should I use ZFS (raid z1) or the softraid.com (raid 5), or APFS (raid 0) + backup to compensate no parity.

Summary:
I would love ZFS, but very uncertain on if ZFS on m1 is ready for day to day use on important data.
softraid and APFS does not support checksum is a concern.

Any thoughts? Thank you in advance!

My thinking are (please correct me if I am wrong):

ZFS on macOS
pros:
- very advanced filesystem
- easy to backup with snapshots? I never used before. But do intend to setup backup to my existing ZFS raid.
EDIT: just heard of ZFS replication today, seems the best solution to backup between two ZFS dataset. Question: is ZFS replication / snapshot stable on ZFS on intel macOS / m1 macOS?
cons:
- smaller dev team, but really appreciate your effort! :)
- not sure about the performance when running ZFS with JBOD mode for external enclosure. Would be great if someone could shine some light here.

softraid
pros:
- a company supporting it. E.g., m1 support came relatively fast
cons:
- old technology
- no checksum

APFS+backup
pros:
- native Apple support, I would hope the raid0 and implementation is not buggy, does not have problem after wake up from sleep
cons:
- no parity, compensated by the fact that I am using SSD, plus there is backup
- no checksum

[1] https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... r_bay.html
novice
 
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Re: macOS: ZFS vs. Softraid vs. APFS+backup?

Postby tangles » Sat Jul 24, 2021 5:23 pm

Lundy and co are doing a mammoth job with ZFS on macOS. ← bloody orsm and they deserve way more Patreon donations…

However, I feel the rapid-rate that macOS upgrades continually keeps the devs challenged to keep pace, which suggests optimisations don’t always receive attention. An upcoming example is Apple wanting to deprecate Kexts.

Unlike other OSes, this does not seem to impact the dev cycle as much in my experience. Consequently, if you want a smooth ZFS experience, consider running a NAS using ZFS underneath. Push your snapshots offsite (friend’s house or work location) for complete disaster recovery.
Buy 10GB networking to connect up your NAS to your M1 iMac (assuming there’s an option for 10GB like the M1 Mac mini) and you’ll have a ball.

Cheers
tangles
 
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Re: macOS: ZFS vs. Softraid vs. APFS+backup?

Postby pat » Thu Nov 18, 2021 1:42 pm

tangles wrote:If you want a smooth ZFS experience, consider running a NAS using ZFS underneath. Push your snapshots offsite (friend’s house or work location) for complete disaster recovery


In this scenario, are you using rsync / time machine / something else to copy files to the NAS?
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