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Mac Pro owner crafts an example Fusion Drive, shows the fearless how it's done

Jon Fingas — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 05:48:00 -0400

Mac fans not keen on picking up a new iMac to get that best-of-all-worlds Fusion Drive might not have to consider a full-on system swap if they're brave enough. Knowing how Apple's approach unites an SSD and a spinning hard drive in a single logical volume, developer Patrick Stein has used command line code to do just that inside his Mac Pro and prove that it works. His series of experiments with organized data shows the effect on storage speeds and that the pseudo-Fusion should even work with less common ZFS formatting. The publicly available instructions could well be tempting to Mac fans who want speed and storage all at once, although we might personally take a pass -- there's more than a fair share of risk in using an unofficial hack to recreate a storage technique that Apple hasn't even shipped.

Filed under: Storage, Apple

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Via: MacRumors, TechCrunch

Source: Patrick Stein (1), (2), (3)

How-To: Set up a home file server using FreeNAS

John Browning — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:00:00 -0500

Ask Engadget: What's the best budget NAS?

Kingston Wi-Drive for iOS hits stores today, lets you create your own portable music server for $130

Tilera sees sense in the server wars, puts just 36 cores in its newest processor

In today's digital world we've all got data, and lots of it. Our libraries are also growing rapidly: where you used to get by setting aside a few bookshelves for your books, CDs, DVDs and VHS tapes, we now require untold server space to preserve our beloved media in digitized form. We also want our data to be itinerant, or at least seem that way. That is, if you want to take a book or disc to another room of your abode, you pull it from the bookshelf and take it with you. Similarly, if you're working on a document upstairs on your desktop and you want to move to the den with your laptop, you'll need the proper infrastructure working in the background to enable that kind of wizardry. So, how can we create this "digital bookshelf?" Can you go out and buy it now? Can you build it in your garage? As it turns out, the answer is "yes" on all counts. You could go out and buy a Drobo device but in this case, we're going to assemble our own. And we're going to do that with the help of an open source storage platform called FreeNAS. So how involved a process is that? Meet us after the break to find out.

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ZFS open source project abruptly shuts down, Snow Leopard weeps icy tears

Darren Murph — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:09:00 -0400

The on-again / off-again love affair between Apple and ZFS seems to be all but over, with a brief but potent message on the Mac OS Forge project site stating the following: "The ZFS project has been discontinued. The mailing list and repository will also be removed shortly." If you'll recall, the implementation of the ZFS file system within Snow Leopard server was so close to happening that Apple actually published it as a feature of the forthcoming OS back in June of 2008. Now, however, all hope has presumably been lost. We'd bother explaining the rumors behind why all of this has suddenly crumbled, but honestly, will knowing the reasons really help the pain? No, no it won't.

[Via TUAW]

Filed under: Software

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Vista, OS X updates could bring significant SSD speed gains

Paul Miller — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 07:10:00 -0400

It's been a real roller coaster ride of emotions with SSD. The once lauded (at least in our hearts) savior of all things computing has, in real life, provided us with lackluster and even controversial performance gains, while battery improvements haven't been revolutionary and the prices still aren't exactly wallet-friendly. Most of that is unlikely to change in the next couple of years, but there's still plenty to be fixed in the short term. Samsung is working with Microsoft to define optimum packet sizes and best practices for reading and writing files to SSD as a potential update for Windows Vista, which is particularly optimized to work best with traditional hard drives. Sun is also working to improve SSD support with its next-gen ZFS file system, which in addition to powering its Solaris OS should be making an appearance in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, at least in the server version. There's clearly still plenty of untapped potential in SSD, let's just hope the powers that be figure this stuff out sooner rather than later.

[Via Mac Rumors]

Filed under: Storage

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Datto's Z Series: world's first on / off-site backup solution to use ZFS

Darren Murph — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 09:48:00 -0400

Datto earned a round of golf claps with its Backup NAS by bringing comparatively affordable off-site storage to the small businesses of the world, but it's giving itself a round of applause with the Z Series. Hailed as the "planet's first on and off-site backup solution to use ZFS," these units provide up to 1TB of local and off-site storage, optional RAID 1 local redundancy, twin gigabit Ethernet ports, OS X / Windows / Linux compatibility and the obligatory rock-solid stability that ZFS is known for. You'll also get a rapid recovery promise, which enables you to sleep easy knowing that your data can be restored within 24 hours should disaster strike. The units range in capacity from 250GB ($499) to 1TB ($1,149), while the required service packages demand anywhere between $35 per month to $1,000 a year.

Filed under: Storage

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ZFS file system coming to Snow Leopard server edition

Joshua Topolsky — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:24:00 -0400

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]

Filed under: Desktops

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Apple previews OS X Snow Leopard: scheduled to ship "in about a year"

Darren Murph — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:21:00 -0400

The next iteration of OS X was mentioned early on during today's WWDC 2008 keynote, but little was said afterwards. Thankfully, Apple hasn't left us completely out to dry, as a recent release gives a few clues as to what Snow Leopard has in store. First and foremost, the OS isn't expected to ship until about this time next year, and just as predicted, it will be more evolutionary than revolutionary. Specifically, it will "enhance the performance of OS X and set a new standard for quality... rather than focusing primarily on new features." Still, we do know that it'll play nice with Microsoft Exchange 2007 from the get-go, provide "unrivaled support for multi-core processors" with a new technology dubbed Grand Central, extend support "for modern hardware with Open Computing Language (OpenCL)," and raise the software limit on system memory up to a theoretical 16TB of RAM. Heck, you'll even find QuickTime X in there. Yeah, we love those new features, but we can honestly say we're looking forward to a nice round of polishing.

Update: Looks like some more solid info has been posted to Apple's page. Head here for more on Snow Leopard desktop and Snow Leopard server (which will include iCal Server 2, 128-bit ZFS support, Podcast Producer 2, the first version of their Address Book server based on CardDAV, and more).

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

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Read / write ZFS beta for Leopard reportedly sent to developers

Donald Melanson — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 14:07:00 -0400

It looks like the on again off again reports of support for the newfangled ZFS file system in Leopard are on again, at least according to the latest word from Mac Rumors, which is citing unspecified "published reports" on the matter. What's more, this apparently isn't the stripped-down, read only incarnation of ZFS we heard about earlier this month, but a full-fledged read/write version, the beta of which has reportedly already been sent to developers. ZFS, for those not up on their file systems, was developed by Sun and promises a range of advantages over lesser file systems, including storage pooling, block-journaling, and other things that a rare few get really excited about.

Update: Reader skwasha notes that apparently the ZFS Leopard files have been pulled, but produced a document regarding the ZFS dev preview, which states: "ZFS is a new filesystem from Sun Microsystems which has been ported by Apple to Mac OS X. The initial (10.5.0) release of Leopard will restrict ZFS to read-only, so no ZFS pools or filesystems can be modified or created. This Developer Preview will enable full read/write capability, which includes the creation/destruction of ZFS pools and filesystems." So there ya go.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Storage

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Leopard does / does not use ZFS, part III: it does! (kinda)

Evan Blass — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 01:16:00 -0400

Hopefully this is the last time we'll be forced to post on this topic, but we're not holding our breath: now InformationWeek -- which quoted an Apple executive this morning stating the polar opposite -- is reporting that Sun's ZFS file system IS in fact included in Leopard, albeit with a number of huge caveats. According to a company spokesperson seeking to clear up Brian Croll's "misstatement," while HFS+ continues to be the primary system used in OS X, ZFS has been coded in as a latent, "read-only option available from the command line." An IW reader claims to have accessed the system through Disk Utility's Erase menu, and states that "ZFS is only available on non-boot drives on Sun systems, so this is also the case for Leopard" -- seemingly reinforcing Croll's later assertion that Apple is really only "exploring it as a file system option for high-end storage systems with really large storage." So there you have it: Sun's Jonathan Schwartz wasn't pulling our leg after all, even if ZFS fanboys won't be pleased with the (presumably) final word on this.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Storage

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Apple: no ZFS for Leopard

Evan Blass — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 10:02:00 -0400

Much to the dismay of those Macheads who've started hitting size limits in Tiger's HFS+ file system (all ten of you), Apple has confirmed to InformationWeek that Leopard will not in fact adopt the more capacious ZFS alternative as promised last week by Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz. Senior director of product marketing for the Mac OS Brian Croll told IW point blank that "ZFS is not happening," contradicting Schwartz's assertion that his company's 128-bit file system would be bringing goodies like built-in data integrity and virtual storage to the iMac and friends. Meanwhile, Sun had no comment on the matter. Of course for most users creating an average Word or Photoshop document, this reversal really doesn't mean much, and may in fact be beneficial when we consider the higher processing demands made by the so-called 'Zettabyte File System." For changes in Leopard that are actually, like, real, you can check out our roundup of the new features right here.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Storage

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Sun says Apple is switching to ZFS in Leopard

Ryan Block — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 00:16:00 -0400

You dealt with it when Apple switched you from MFS to HFS, and again you were switched from HFS to HFS+ (and even journaled HFS+), and you'll deal with it again: according to Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz (whom you may know for his totally righteous pony tail), Apple is going to use Sun's crazy advanced ZFS filesystem when they move users over to Leopard. The material advantages may not be immediately apparent to the average user (when was the last time you whipped up a multi-exabyte file?), but it will do some excellentay things like storage pooling (aka virtual storage), block-journaling, and plenty of other nerdy things about which you can read up on elsewhere. Expect to hear more about this one next Monday at WWDC.

Watch - Schwartz talks it up [Via MacRumors]
Read - More about why this is a Good Thing (TM)

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Storage

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