Hard to know where to start. Do you work for Microsoft? You aren't stupid, and are well-written, so I won't sugar coat this.
-ZFS RAID: ZFS does full stripe writes, all the time, which are the fastest software RAID writes, thanks to variable stripe writes. This does, in fact. obsolete mid-range HW RAID, let alone the cheap PCI RAID cards.
-Self-validating the data store is independent of RAID. If you don't understand this, it is back to school time. File systems are supposed to be independent of the underlying infrastructure.
-Apple engineers can figure out how to boot from it. Not a priority for Sun, whose E10K's required an internal SCSI disk for years to boot.
-Versioning isn't the same as CDP, as you well know. Since snapshots in ZFS are cheaper than overwrites, it would be simple - and I have no idea what APPL engineers are implementing - to snapshot before every ~Documents write.
-Today's set-top boxes aren't hoping you will spend thousands of dollars purchasing copies of content that they won't let you backup. ITV is. So Apple is suddenly going to offer a generic set-top box? WTF?
-You don't know a frikkin' thing about technology diffusion, do you? A hint: when you get hundreds of thousands of people going to work and telling the CIO that my home system does this and this and your expensive proprietary system doesn't, that raises the bar. Remember when PC's and VisiCalc were new, and smart guys would rip IT a new one because their batch IBM 4300s couldn't respond as quickly as a $3k PC? No bells ringing?
Apple doesn't care about the enterprise. The enterprise is the elephant's graveyard of IT companies. The enterprise is coming to Apple, and companies like Apple, not vice-versa.
Here are five good reasons for Apple to go to ZFS:
-No more Disk Warrior. The entire data store is self-validating. No bit rot.
-No RAID controllers needed: ZFS gives you fast RAID for free. Just add drives. Why would anyone care? See #5.
-No more volumes and, therefore, no more volume management. ZFS eliminates the whole volume concept. Add a disk to your system and it joins your storage pool. More capacity. Not more management. What home user would want that?
-Continuous Data Protection out of the box. Time Machine could give you a view of your data every time you update a file.
-ITV, or whatever it is going to be called. Multi-GB files that each cost $10-20, that can't be backed up - thanks DRM! - and therefore need a cheap and highly reliable RAID. ITV, two firewire drives, ZFS and you are in business.
-Not to mention the existential pleasure of having great technology that Vista doesn't have. In fact, since consumer technology is driving the enterprise, expect ZFS on Mac to raise the bar for every OS and file system.
I suspect that Time Machine is simply the first of several beautifully designed storage utilities that we'll see on Leopard. How about automatic synchronization when you plug in an external drive? Snapshots automatically exported to.Mac? ZFS enables all kinds of coolness and I, for one, can't wait to get it on my laptop.
People care a good deal less about maintenance cost than development cost because it is a future cost. Net Present Value discounts future dollars by whatever interest rate the organization uses for investment decisions. In practical terms, with a 10% interest rate (low by historical standards) a dollar of cost in 5 years is worth about $0.62 today. A dollar of development cost today costs a dollar.
So while trying to optimize for TCO isn't stupid, it also isn't quite the win that most commenters seem to believe. As interest rates rise, as they must due to our incredibly irresponsible fiscal policy, there will be even LESS attention paid to TCO. Heh.
HP's original Obook 300 (c. 1993) had an option for a 10MB PCMCIA flash card. The OS (W3.1), Word, Excel, telcom, PDA & some utilities were in ROM. It weighed less than 3 lbs, had a 10 hour battery life, and the only Windows sleep mode I've seen that actually worked. All the wired hipsters had to have one.
So instead of ROM, Apple (why? because who else introduces new technology in the PC space?) would use the flash for the OS and Apps folders, & use a 1" drive for user land. They will have an external optical drive (that's why they changed iDVD to support disk images) and a really lightweight box. You'll be able to update the OS and apps without coming anywhere near flash's write limits - all the swap space and docs will still be on a hard drive.
The Obook spoiled me for life: anything over 3 lbs is just too heavy. Much as I love my 12"PB, it is just too heavy to be comfortable when traveling. Please Apple, hurry up and ship it. A G4 is fine!
Flash is coming - again! I can't wait.
Safari 1.3 tabbed browsing doesn't work anymore -- even after I trashed the safari.plist file and then took the safari folder out. It worked ok with a new user, though, so I must have some kind of special condition.
It also broke SafariSorter.
I've got an 867 mhz 12" pbook.
Slashdot Mirror
for people who want the bottom line and not a 13 page paper. Check out Google's Disk Failure Experience.
Hard to know where to start. Do you work for Microsoft? You aren't stupid, and are well-written, so I won't sugar coat this.
-ZFS RAID: ZFS does full stripe writes, all the time, which are the fastest software RAID writes, thanks to variable stripe writes. This does, in fact. obsolete mid-range HW RAID, let alone the cheap PCI RAID cards.
-Self-validating the data store is independent of RAID. If you don't understand this, it is back to school time. File systems are supposed to be independent of the underlying infrastructure.
-Apple engineers can figure out how to boot from it. Not a priority for Sun, whose E10K's required an internal SCSI disk for years to boot.
-Versioning isn't the same as CDP, as you well know. Since snapshots in ZFS are cheaper than overwrites, it would be simple - and I have no idea what APPL engineers are implementing - to snapshot before every ~Documents write.
-Today's set-top boxes aren't hoping you will spend thousands of dollars purchasing copies of content that they won't let you backup. ITV is. So Apple is suddenly going to offer a generic set-top box? WTF?
-You don't know a frikkin' thing about technology diffusion, do you? A hint: when you get hundreds of thousands of people going to work and telling the CIO that my home system does this and this and your expensive proprietary system doesn't, that raises the bar. Remember when PC's and VisiCalc were new, and smart guys would rip IT a new one because their batch IBM 4300s couldn't respond as quickly as a $3k PC? No bells ringing?
Apple doesn't care about the enterprise. The enterprise is the elephant's graveyard of IT companies. The enterprise is coming to Apple, and companies like Apple, not vice-versa.
Don't any of you guys use Macs?
.Mac? ZFS enables all kinds of coolness and I, for one, can't wait to get it on my laptop.
Here are five good reasons for Apple to go to ZFS:
-No more Disk Warrior. The entire data store is self-validating. No bit rot.
-No RAID controllers needed: ZFS gives you fast RAID for free. Just add drives. Why would anyone care? See #5.
-No more volumes and, therefore, no more volume management. ZFS eliminates the whole volume concept. Add a disk to your system and it joins your storage pool. More capacity. Not more management. What home user would want that?
-Continuous Data Protection out of the box. Time Machine could give you a view of your data every time you update a file.
-ITV, or whatever it is going to be called. Multi-GB files that each cost $10-20, that can't be backed up - thanks DRM! - and therefore need a cheap and highly reliable RAID. ITV, two firewire drives, ZFS and you are in business.
-Not to mention the existential pleasure of having great technology that Vista doesn't have. In fact, since consumer technology is driving the enterprise, expect ZFS on Mac to raise the bar for every OS and file system.
I suspect that Time Machine is simply the first of several beautifully designed storage utilities that we'll see on Leopard. How about automatic synchronization when you plug in an external drive? Snapshots automatically exported to
Read more at ZFS On Leopard: How Cool Is That? Means, Motive & Opportunity: Apple Kills the Media Center PC and the latest ZFS On Mac: Now All-But-Official.
And you heard about the native iSCSI support in Leopard, right?
People care a good deal less about maintenance cost than development cost because it is a future cost. Net Present Value discounts future dollars by whatever interest rate the organization uses for investment decisions. In practical terms, with a 10% interest rate (low by historical standards) a dollar of cost in 5 years is worth about $0.62 today. A dollar of development cost today costs a dollar. So while trying to optimize for TCO isn't stupid, it also isn't quite the win that most commenters seem to believe. As interest rates rise, as they must due to our incredibly irresponsible fiscal policy, there will be even LESS attention paid to TCO. Heh.
HP's original Obook 300 (c. 1993) had an option for a 10MB PCMCIA flash card. The OS (W3.1), Word, Excel, telcom, PDA & some utilities were in ROM. It weighed less than 3 lbs, had a 10 hour battery life, and the only Windows sleep mode I've seen that actually worked. All the wired hipsters had to have one. So instead of ROM, Apple (why? because who else introduces new technology in the PC space?) would use the flash for the OS and Apps folders, & use a 1" drive for user land. They will have an external optical drive (that's why they changed iDVD to support disk images) and a really lightweight box. You'll be able to update the OS and apps without coming anywhere near flash's write limits - all the swap space and docs will still be on a hard drive. The Obook spoiled me for life: anything over 3 lbs is just too heavy. Much as I love my 12"PB, it is just too heavy to be comfortable when traveling. Please Apple, hurry up and ship it. A G4 is fine! Flash is coming - again! I can't wait.
Safari 1.3 tabbed browsing doesn't work anymore -- even after I trashed the safari .plist file and then took the safari folder out. It worked ok with a new user, though, so I must have some kind of special condition.
It also broke SafariSorter.
I've got an 867 mhz 12" pbook.