ZFS file system coming to Snow Leopard server edition

It's been almost exactly a year since we heard any chatter over Apple's adoption of the supposedly rock solid 128-bit ZFS file system, but it appears to be heading into the next version of the company's OS... at least for servers. According to the promo page for Snow Leopard for OS X servers, the redundant, error correcting, dynamic volume expanding format will be available when the new system drops, though there's no mention of whether it will make its way onto the standard version of the software. With data handling that's this tight, our only question is why wouldn't it make the cut?

[Thanks, Mark]

[Jesse S @ Jun 23rd 2008 10:29AM]

lol OS X as a server OS.

[Ryan @ Jun 23rd 2008 10:37AM]

Shows how much you know.

It's still UNIX and it's still very powerful. When teamed up with XSAN and XServe Raid solutions the servers practically run themselves.

[Will @ Jun 23rd 2008 10:42AM]

Mac OS X server is actually a pretty powerful OS, especially for small businesses that handle their own tech, since it's easy to set up. Right out of the box, you've got a CalDAV server, a wiki server, a mail server with the usual junk/virus filtering, support for afp, smb, and ftp file sharing. Adding ZFS should help them make inroads to being used in datacenter type operations.

[Reid @ Jun 23rd 2008 10:47AM]

Yeah, there were some pretty damning benchmarks of MySQL and Apache performance under OS X that I remember from a few years ago. Really poor threading performance I think. I'm not sure if they've ever been addressed.

I've only got 1 or 2 XServes, they're not loaded heavily at all, and I don't use the super-awesome-pretty management GUI, so I don't really have any useful firsthand comments on the matter. All I know is the GUI looks ubercool from Apple's website, but I don't know if it works as advertised. Pretty much all of our stuff is Solaris and Linux, and we don't use any of the whiz-bang management features on those systems either.

[dan2600 @ Jun 23rd 2008 10:54AM]

careful Jesse S, I made a simliar comment a couple days ago and the mac fan boys attacked me too, though just to point out a few points about OSX server

UNIX based yes

however forcing to run any server with a persistent GUI is just stupid, not only does it take up unnessacary resources, any network admin will tell you that the more unnessacary services you run, the more unnessacary possible security holes/exploits you open up. Sure, there are some great unix "set-up" GUIs, but once that is done, you turn them off.

a Server is meant to be run as clean as possible, and once it is up and running all admin should be run from a remote machine via SSH CLI or something similar. none of this, sit at your mac and and iAdmin.

OSX is a great entry level server system, but for the price, you could set up a open source based server on a much more powerful rig.

[Zak @ Jun 23rd 2008 11:34AM]

Sure Dan, I'm sure that because somebody disagreed with your assessment of OS X Server, that makes them "fanboys". How familiar are you with OS X Server, exactly? Have you deployed into an enterprise? How many clients do you have running on it? How many services are you running on it?

I have run OS X Server on various machines including some XServes, in various locations for various companies. I have some pretty decent experience with it first hand. Do you? Can you speak specifically to its performance rather than just theorizing why it isn't that great?

And I think it's funny that you think you have to sit at the Mac to admin it. Do you honestly believe you can't remote admin OS X Server? Really?

[Jesse S @ Jun 23rd 2008 11:39AM]

Not to mention it still lacks so many features of real UNIX OS's, it's practically useless.

Not to mention all of the security issues.

[Zak @ Jun 23rd 2008 11:46AM]

Actually Jesse, I'd like you to name them. Name the features you think are missing, and name these alleged security issues. Be specific, too.

[letthetrolling begin! @ Jun 23rd 2008 12:14PM]

you could look into the like 48 or something "Critical" security flaws they found/fixed last week... and the 90 they have to fix 2 months ago -_- that in comparison to the 3 they found with windows server 2003 doesn't sit to well with me....

Granted you will find/update security flaws all the time, apples track record of being "hush-hush" about exploits is something that will keep me away from OSX server and stick to the open source world.

[Mikey @ Jun 23rd 2008 12:23PM]

Missin features? I guess Jesse has never heard of Terminal. It's this command line utility that lets you execute UNIX code in a bash shell. OS X has it, you know.

[Zak @ Jun 23rd 2008 12:43PM]

letthetrollingbegin - fantastic name by the way - can you post a link to that data? And seriously, comparing Leopard Server (new) to Windows Server 2003 (5 years old)? Really? Anyway, post a link please, I'll check it out.

[Yarn @ Jun 23rd 2008 12:44PM]

I inherited a 10.2 server when I started a new job back in 2003. It's still going and I now have 10.3 and 10.4 servers.

Compared to my linux servers they're initially easier to administer, but the shell scripting is weak, making automation hard. Check out "dsimportexport" which I use to keep the user list in sync with my user database.

Fun may also occur if you try to add a regular Samba host to an OpenDirectory Samba domain. They may or may not choose different methods to link UIDs to SIDs.

That said, if they get ZFS working properly before Linux does I'll be sorely tempted.

[asus @ Jun 23rd 2008 1:32PM]

dan2600 - Whats this tomfoolery about running your server with no UI because it "wastes" cycles? First of all, it doesn't. When the system is logged out and nobody is using the GUI, it sits idle at 0% CPU. Second, if you really want to run your servers no UI for some reason, you can just log into OSX using ">console" and it will take you to the UNIX shell. The other thing is, like any server admin GUI, the tools can be run remotely over the network, so you don't even have to have a KVM connected...

[Ryan @ Jun 23rd 2008 10:32AM]

Whoa, about time... I know it's an enterprise level product, but another "why not" question... why not release it on the normal desktop snow leopard as well? the more filesystems the better!

[lowdef @ Jun 23rd 2008 10:35AM]

department of redundancy department

[michas_pi @ Jun 23rd 2008 2:23PM]

Mount Redundancy Mountain

[Kiwi616 @ Jun 23rd 2008 10:41AM]

Hopefully, this doesn't lead to 2 versions of Snow Leopard....with different feature sets.

[James @ Jun 23rd 2008 10:44AM]

So it'll be 2010 before consumers can finally use ZFS...

[Lein @ Jun 23rd 2008 10:44AM]

I ask again: what exactly is TUAW for?

[r3loaded @ Jun 23rd 2008 10:52AM]

It's Engadget, but with an Apple logo on the site.

[ChrisM @ Jun 23rd 2008 11:08AM]

By your logic, what is Switched for? It doesn't cost money to cross-post. But I guess it does cost lots of unwarranted complaining. I love how the readers of this site think they are entitled to control its content.

[Ryan Karolak @ Jun 23rd 2008 11:41AM]

Engadget covers tech news, and like it or not, that includes Apple. They aren't going to stop covering Apple stories because a few people don't like Apple.

[Lein @ Jun 23rd 2008 12:58PM]

Who says they shouldn't cover it? I'm sure it's important to somebody... just not to the majority of readers who won't touch an Apple computer, let alone an Apple Server OS.

I can deal with the iPhone and iPod flood since those are devices that I may be one day inclined to buy. I'll even follow (stubbornly at times yes, but still) the big production articles such as product launch coverage or WWDC shows. But come on, information about features exclusive to a server OS that is at least a year away from availability is NOT n- oh wait, I forgot, this is a blog. "Professional writing experience isn't necessary." What was I thinking.

Carry on.

[Minilap @ Jun 23rd 2008 10:49AM]

Thanks for the old news Engadget. :)

[BuddyBoy @ Jun 23rd 2008 10:56AM]

I had to read this about 5 times trying to figure out what was news.
It's been on Apples site for what must be a week!

[Joshua Topolsky @ Jun 23rd 2008 11:47AM]

You're welcome! We love to help!

[Matt @ Jun 23rd 2008 1:24PM]

I just want to thank Josh for replying to the "thanks for the old news" comment... You are my blogging hero.

[Matt @ Jun 23rd 2008 1:26PM]

I just want to thank Josh for replying to the "thanks for the old news" comment... You are my blogging hero.

[r3loaded @ Jun 23rd 2008 10:50AM]

OS X Home Edition, and OS X Professional Edition....

The nightmare begins :P

[Tomahawk @ Jun 23rd 2008 2:09PM]

you say that, but there has always been two flavors of OS X from what I remember. OS X workstation and OS X Server. As opposed to the eight versions of Windows 2008

[MadMike @ Jun 23rd 2008 11:17AM]

There are already two versions of OS X. Regular and Server.

However, I think that if ZFS makes it into server it may be an option for the regular when you prepare the disk. It just may not be the default choice, but available via an advanced setup. At least that would be the smart choice - but then again, I rarely see large for-profit corporations make logical and smart choices.

[Kelmon @ Jun 24th 2008 6:58AM]

I tend to agree. If you believe that a file system is ready for a server, potentially running mission-critical applications, then I'd have thought it ought to be ready for the client as well. Time will tell in what form ZFS will come to 10.6 client, although its worth noting that you can run ZFS on 10.5 today, if you are prepared for potential problems, using the Developer Preview.

[MadMike @ Jun 24th 2008 8:13AM]

Kelmon,
As I iterated before, that would be the smart choice for Apple to allow us unfettered access to ZFS for the client version of 10.6.
If we can use Developer Preview to use ZFS on 10.5 client, then I would be willing to wager that they would have the ability to install 10.6 client to a ZFS volume without hacking.

[Dan @ Jun 23rd 2008 11:22AM]

ZFS on Mac is already available if you're willing to run pre-release beta code (http://zfs.macosforge.org/trac/wiki/). ZFS is intended for big servers with lots of disks and wouldn't make much sense on a MacBook Air. Where ZFS would make sense, where Apple really should be pushing it, is on a MacPro tower with four disks, getting you software RAID-5 (but better) without needing to buy Apple's expensive RAID card. Also, if Apple wanted to expand Time Capsule to have four (or more) disks, they would almost certainly use ZFS on the inside.

For regular Mac users, ZFS could be used to completely re-engineer how Time Machine works, but that's a larger topic for another day.

[Randy @ Jun 23rd 2008 11:26AM]

To get the most benefit out of ZFS, you need at least two (fixed) disks, which the consumer level mac's don't typically have; the exception being the Mac Pro which most typical (consumer) mac users won't need/buy.

That said, I still would love to see zfs as the default fs for OS X.

[zargon @ Jun 23rd 2008 11:26AM]

ZFS sounds great in concept and all, but I think it has been over hyped from the beginning. Now that Apple is using it, we can be assured that it will continued to be over hyped and also all the Apple zealots proclaiming it to be the second coming...

[freediverdude @ Jun 23rd 2008 11:44AM]

We are not Apple zealots!! We are merely i-aficionados. And we don't overhype!! We merely state a product's features in a boldly emphatic way!

[Zak @ Jun 23rd 2008 11:50AM]

A pretty strong hint that you don't know what you're talking about is when you use a strawman to make an argument. Where are these Apple zealots you're talking about? Can you name them? Can you point one out to me? Show me where one of them proclaimed that ZFS was the second coming.

[zargon @ Jun 23rd 2008 12:16PM]

Why Zak, you have to look no further than the mirror to find one of the biggest Apple zealots.

I did not saying you zealots are currently proclaiming it to be the second coming, but it is only a matter of time...

You may want to crawl back to you Zak cave, there may be alrams going off from other comments around the world that are not praising Apple... saving the world, one comment at a time.

[Lamp @ Jun 23rd 2008 12:37PM]

zargon, supporting apple products does not make someone a zealot.
you however, come in labeling people left and right,
"you zealots" this, and "you zealots" that.
maybe we are zealots,
but we're not the ones doing the insulting.

[Zak @ Jun 23rd 2008 12:37PM]

How am I a zealot? Can you give me a specific example? You know, show me where I said that Apple is better than everything, or said anything that can't be proven true. Note that I'm not the one namecalling and hating here, you are. And your "oh well no they didn't say that but I'm pretty sure they will" excuse is pretty sad. You can't do any better than that?

[Kelmon @ Jun 24th 2008 7:04AM]

@zak

Apparently an Apple Zealot is defined as "anyone saying nice things about Apple, or providing counter arguments to the usual FUD being spread". If you aren't bashing Apple then, by definition, you are an Apple Zealot. Given the pretty accurate definition provided, which can also be summarised as "not a complete muppet", who cares?

[Joseph @ Jun 24th 2008 12:45PM]

EPIC FAIL: Sun pioneered ZFS, apple is merely borrowing it and there is no such thing as a sun fanboi.

[Zak @ Jun 23rd 2008 11:28AM]

Yeah why would it lead to two versions of OS X client? We already have OS X Server and OS X Client. Are you guys saying you were unaware of the existence of OS X Server?

[Matt @ Jun 23rd 2008 1:31PM]

I think they mean if ZFS was released as a client version then they would have two versions of client... don't know if that's true or not.

[Inspectah deck @ Jun 23rd 2008 11:31AM]

yeah a new file system! Great how about a new kernel, you know one that's optimized for this century perhaps. I love the OS but seriously a micro-kernel it's 2008 lets grow up Apple.

[Lamp @ Jun 23rd 2008 12:14PM]

wow, who needs a board of directors when you have this guy.
seriously, its not like apple makes any educated business decisions.
Inspectah deck, on the other hand, knows exactly whats going down.
Kudos to you, mr. forum browser man.

[Kelmon @ Jun 24th 2008 7:09AM]

Eh? OS X is based on a monolithic kernel comprised of elements from Mach, FreeBSD and some I/O stuff Apple made themselves. Mach itself is a microkernel but is used inside the monolithic Darwin kernel.

[required @ Jun 23rd 2008 11:53AM]

Isn't ZFS Sun Microsystems technology?

[Catsceo @ Jun 23rd 2008 12:13PM]

Yes.