ZFS

[2023/11]

ZFS is an amazing well-designed file-system with more capabilities than any other.

NEW FEATURE: block-cloning (COW cp).

FreeBSD-14.0 gains capability to make COW (copy-on-write) copies -- HURRAY!! THANKS!! -- with advent of block-cloning feature of OpenZFS-2.2.0. Now FreeBSD cp command will automatically create a COW copy (no special args needed). Currently (FreeBSD-14.0) ZFS block-cloning feature must be enabled by putting vfs.zfs.bclone_enabled=1 to /etc/sysctl.conf. *** CAUTION: BLOCK-CLONING FEATURE IS EXPERIMENTAL [FreeBSD-14.0] -- MIGHT DESTROY YOUR DATA!!! ***

PITFALL: mv command will really do expensive copy/delete across ZFS datasets.

Because every ZFS dataset is a separate file-system with its own mount-point.

DEFICIENCY OR FEATURE?: Impossible (practically) to delete files out of snapshots.