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OS X Snow Leopard Details
JD-1027 writes in to kick off a discussion of OS X Snow Leopard. Apple's stated goal: "Taking a break from adding new features, Snow Leopard — scheduled to ship in about a year — builds on Leopard's enormous innovations by delivering a new generation of core software technologies that will streamline Mac OS X, enhance its performance, and set new standards for quality." The technologies: Grand Central to get better use of multiple processors and multicore chips, OpenCL to tap the power of the GPU, 64 bit so we can finally have our 16 TB of RAM, QuickTime X for optimized modern codec performance, and built in Exchange support in iCal, Address Book, and Apple Mail that most likely will help get Macs into corporate environments. We've previously discussed ZFS in the server version of Snow Leopard."
You mean, sort of like how MacFUSE enables tons of FUSE filesystems, including NTFS, to be used with your Macintosh? Old news.
defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true
What is NTFS? Is that that primitive file system that needs defragging all the time and takes forever to format a HD with that file system?
Ok, this misinformed Bumpersticker logic has to stop, and now...
NTFS may be a bit long in the tooth, but it has taken 15 years and ZFS to catch up to NTFS on a number of features. And even with that said, ZFS, still lacks several important features that is just expected to be there by people using NTFS.
Can't believe I'm going to use quick Wiki here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ntfs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zfs
If you want 'technical' information, go freaking read the NTFS whitepapers, or even get a academic code release version of how and why it works WITH SOURCE code. There are important reasoning to the technology of NTFS, especially in terms of performance and features just not currently found in ANY OTHER File System made, and this even includes ZFS, that gets close.
Back to the myth. Does the poster know why NTFS will fragment a bit more than older File System technologies? Apparently No...
NTFS has copy of write and snapshot features, this adds to the fragmentation on a volume by the nature of the way snapshots and copy on write operations are handled.
This feature (snapshots/copy on write) is a MAIN FEATURE of ZFS, so if OS X moves to ZFS, it will have the same inherent added fragmentation as NTFS. Whoops, guess you should be making fun of something you are getting as an UPGRADE in terms of features.
1) Microsoft never said NTFS didn't fragment, they said it was less prone to fragmenting that DOS's FAT/FAT32, which is TRUE.
2) Microsoft did state NTFS's fragmentation was not as great of a performance issue compared to FAT/FAT32 because of how NTFS's lookup behavior works, making no additional fragmentatin lookup seeks, like FAT does. This means it can get the file locations and read it in a swipe, even if it is in 1000 fragments.
3) Microsoft has always stated snapshot and copy on write features of NTFS would mean it will always have a bit more fragmentation than 'simpilier' file systems, like OS X and most default Linux installs use today.
Just to recap:
When/if Apple adds ZFS to OS X, its inherent level of fragmentation will be equal to NTFS, because it is the nature of the File System design features of both that prevent this trade off for more advanced features.
Also, people do realize that NO FS is fragmentation free, even the current mainstream file systems in OS X, right?
OS X runs a background defragmentation utility, just like Vista does. There is nothing hard or special about this. (Vista has a low I/O priority added to the inherent NTFS priority abilities, making backgroun operations like defragmenting seamless in terms of performance to the user.)
ZFS is good and finally steps up to the plate on some important and modern File System features long needed. It still is young and lacks inherent encryption, file level quota management, and other little features, but with some good support will be a good alternative to NTFS in the UNIX world. NTFS is far from primative or old in terms of features, as it has been the File System to live up to or beat outside of Microsoft.
However, NTFS is MS Intellectual property and MS probably won't be giving up the code to it anytime soon. I actually wish Sun and Microsoft had a better relationship, as it would be nice to see a unified File System technology across all platforms, and a combination of Sun's ZFS work and NTFS would be a freaking awesome mix of technology in terms of File System features, and performance.
NTFS is nothing to mock, especially when you are responding to an article talking about Snow Leopard getting ZFS which will present the same issue for OS X you are making fun of NTFS for...