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ZFS returns to the Mac

Summary: Startup Ten's Complement LLC will bring ZFS to Mac OS X, its principal software engineer announced late last week. Offered as Z-410 Storage, the file system (and now an actual product) is in the process of beta testing.

David Morgenstern

By for The Apple Core |

Startup Ten's Complement LLC will bring ZFS to Mac OS X, its principal software engineer announced late last week. Offered as Z-410 Storage, the file system (and now an actual product) is in the process of beta testing.

The company's website says it started testing recently:

Essential OS Upgrades We're not quite there yet — but we have some exciting products in development. Our version of ZFS for Mac OS X, Z-410 Storage, started external beta testing last week. Expect more announcements soon.

Ten's Complement Software Architect is Don Brady, a former senior Apple engineer. In a series of tweets earlier in the month, he said the

# We finally got the installer package, disk image and beta website going! Once we confirm the process works we'll throw the switch...

# We finished our bake-time testing. Once we wrap up release notes, SW license, installer and beta web site we'll be good to go...

In 2006, the next-gen file system developed by Sun was ported to Mac OS X. It was offered through an open source project. Many Mac storage and server managers expected expanded ZFS support to continue in Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server, however in the summer of 2009 Apple dropped the project altogether.

There were technical concerns. However, a number of sources said that Apple pulled the plug because of Sun licensing demands. And then there was worry brought on by the NetApp lawsuit.

ZDNet's Robin Harris ran down the issues in a post at the time:

The NetApp lawsuit may have come into play, making patent risk pertinent and potentially costly. Given that and the other CDDL-related risks, plus engineering opposition to GPL, Apple must have reluctantly stepped away. Apple would like bragging rights over Windows 7 that ZFS would give it, but in this narrative Sun’s pre-acquisition turmoil and tougher-than-expected licensing terms killed the deal.

Harris predicted that ZFS might return. And here it almost is.

Topics: Oracle, Apple, Hardware, Operating Systems, Software

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22 comments
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  • ZFS and Mac OS X together, at last!

    "Our foundational release of ZFS for Mac OS X is targeted at early adopters and those who can't wait to combine the world's most innovative operating system with the world's most advanced file system."<br><br>Eat dust Microsoft....*cough*cough*.....keep on patching your lame duck OS with it's reghell, dllhell, spyware infested file system.
    james347
    Reply Vote

    • RE: ZFS returns to the Mac

      @james347 Apple isn't doing this a startup is.
      DevGuy_z
      Reply Vote

    • RE: ZFS returns to the Mac

      @james347 DLLHell? OK. Do this if you want to see the mac equivalent...

      sudo rm -rf /usr/lib

      A DLL is just the same as a .so on a mac, it's a shared library but on the windows platform.
      snoop0x7b
      Reply Vote

      • RE: ZFS returns to the Mac

        @snoop0x7b Actually, it is .dylib, not .so on MacOSX. No, MacOSX does not suffer from dll-hell like Windows because dylibs are versioned on OSX and Apple discourages use of external dylibs. One generally packages his dylibs inside the application bundle which is opaque to the average user.

        BTW: one of the reasons why dylib management works better on OSX is due to unix symlink support. I've been baffled for years as to why MS hasn't copied such a useful feature.
        bayoubengal0
        Reply Vote

      • RE: ZFS returns to the Mac

        @snoop0x7b What about the Windows registry as one massive file. What a stupid idea that is...
        prof123
        Reply Vote

      • RE: ZFS returns to the Mac

        @prof123,

        it's not a file...it's a heirarchical database, changes are done through transaction atomic updates and have been since Vista. In general the windows registry has been given a bad rap. IMHO the benefits of the registry outweigh the costs. I would rather have configuration settings in one place then all over the file system. At least you know where to go.
        bmonsterman
        Reply Vote

      • RE: ZFS returns to the Mac

        @prof12,

        he said "WAS"...not "is".

        They could have set up their registry APIs so that each app had its own preference file stored in well-defined places. There was no need to have a monolithic text file that stored everything. I'm glad to know they finally implemented a better solution
        bayoubengal0
        Reply Vote

      • RE: ZFS returns to the Mac

        @bmonsterman, so you're saying that you'd rather put all of your eggs in one basket? As with Mac OS, there's tools for other UNIX-like operating systems that allow you to centrally manage your pref files as if it were the Windows Registry, so you don't have to go rooting around the file system and you don't have all of your eggs in one basket.
        Champ_Kind
        Reply Vote

      • RE: ZFS returns to the Mac

        @bmonsterman, so you're saying that you'd rather put all of your eggs in one basket? As with Mac OS, there's tools for other UNIX-like operating systems that allow you to centrally manage your pref files as if it were the Windows Registry, so you don't have to go rooting around the file system and you don't have all of your eggs in one basket.

        I'd rather have hundreds of pref files than a single, corruptible database, but that's just me.
        Champ_Kind
        Reply Vote

    • I'm searching the article again

      But I don't see Microsoft being brought up anywhere.

      : I
      Michael Alan Goff
      Reply Vote

  • Interesting but?

    So this sounds interesting. But will Apple break it in updates and Lion the next OSX version?
    jscott418-22447200638980614791982928182376
    Reply Vote

    • RE: ZFS returns to the Mac

      @jscott418 Apple invariably makes incompatible kernel API changes between major versions of the OS. I doubt they'd make that kind of change in a minor revision (the 10.6.X portion). Granted it's usually not too hard to update your kernel module to comply with the new API, but still, probably.
      snoop0x7b
      Reply Vote

    • RE: ZFS returns to the Mac

      @jscott418 I doubt Apple will set out to purposely break any 3rd party software. Also, unless this guy is a moron, he already has a copy of Lion he's working with to make sure it is compatible.
      mjtomlin71
      Reply Vote

  • RE: ZFS returns to the Mac

    Yes. I remember playing with ZFS on a Sun system at my previous workplace and it does very well with many, many but small files we had for our database logarchives. At that time ZFS didn't like hardware RAID because ZFS wanted control of low level disk operations and hardware RAID doesn't allow that. I think ZFS would be a welcome addition to Mac OS X.
    phatkat
    Reply Vote

    • RE: ZFS returns to the Mac

      @phatkat No support for RAID would be a big problem.

      Another problem of ZFS is that even though existing file systems are ancient and have many problems, they work pretty well, by and large.

      The only reason to switch to ZFS in the future would be for Apple to use it to create new, unique features that lesser file systems simply can't do. A long term play, but not unlike Apple's investment in many other technologies. But I guess Sun killed that idea with their licensing fees.
      orthorim
      Reply Vote

  • RE: ZFS returns to the Mac

    ZFS as a common Next Gen Open source Filing System across Windows, OS X, Linux, Enterprise Unix, Mainframe, Cloud is a compelling story. Unfortunately, vested interests will mean it is niche only, unless apple can arm-twist a better deal out of Oracle than Sun were offering.
    neilpost
    Reply Vote

    • RE: ZFS returns to the Mac

      @neilpost One phone call from Steve to Larry ought to do it.
      comp_indiana
      Reply Vote

      • RE: ZFS returns to the Mac

        @comp_indiana That's what I was going to say. Larry and Steve are best of friends. It's hard to imagine it wasn't some other reason, and not because Oracle bought Sun, that ended the project. <br><br>Since they dropped ZFS Apple has been working on their own high-end file system. They picked up the guy who built the file system of BeOS. Wouldn't it be ironic for OS X to run on top of what was once the BeOS FS?
        ewelch
        Reply Vote

      • RE: ZFS returns to the Mac

        @comp_indiana @ewelch - I see, Apple is already building their own super high end file system - that makes sense.

        It has two advantages: Avoid problems with Oracle. And the new in-house solution can avoid the problems that ZFS has.

        Looking forward to it!
        orthorim
        Reply Vote

  • RE: ZFS returns to the Mac

    If Apple isn't supporting this themselves, and it isn't in all installs of the OS, how useful will it really be?
    melgross
    Reply Vote
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