Upgrading macOS and ZFS?

[StephenR]

So I have an M1 mini currently running ZFS 2.2.2-1 on macOS Sonoma 14.7.1

I didn't upgrade to macOS 15 Sequoia because there were no "stable" ZFS builds for Sequoia at the time I looked.

I now see that there is an RC for 2.3.0, which includes a Sequoia build.


So my question is: which do I upgrade first?

My first thought is to upgrade ZFS to 2.3.0 using the Sonoma installer; confirm it works properly; upgrade macOS to Sequoia; possibly "upgrade" ZFS again to the Sequoia build.
Besides doing an export of the pool before the ZFS upgrade, is there any other recommended procedure here?

What about: zfs export; disconnect the hardware (the ZFS drives are all external over TB3); upgrade macOS; upgrade ZFS; reconnect and import the pool?


Cheers

[Sharko]

Hi, as you can see our community seems to be shrinking, in terms of interaction and knowledge, down to a few die-hards (raises hand). I'll give you my take on your question.

In the past Mr. Lundman has released some of the ZFS software specifically labeled as compatible with a less-than-latest release (say, Catalina), and told us that it can be used for later releases (Monterey, for example). That would argue for upgrading your system to the latest labeled ZFS release for Sonoma first, under the assumption that it will probably also function in the later release. Then I would upgrade the operating system, and see where you stand: does everything ZFS-related work? If so, I would stop there, or at the very lease image your system to a bootable backup that you can roll back to, if necessary, before upgrading to a Sequoia-specific ZFS release.