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	Replies: 1 - Last Post: Nov 23, 2009 11:11 PM by: schuster

Colin Raven
colin@clearcutnetwor...

[zfs-discuss] Dedup question
Posted: Nov 23, 2009 11:03 PM

Folks,

I've been reading Jeff Bonwick's fascinating dedup post. This is going to sound like either the dumbest or the most obvious question ever asked, but, if you don't know and can't produce meaningful RTFM results....ask...so here goes:

Assuming you have a dataset in a zfs pool that's been deduplicated, with pointers all nicely in place and so on.

Doesn't this mean that you're now always and forever tied to ZFS (and why not? I'm certainly not saying that's a Bad Thing) because no other "wannabe file system" will be able to read those ZFS pointers?

Or am I horribly misunderstanding the concept in some way?

Regards - and as always - TIA,

-Me

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schuster

Posts: 773
From: US

Registered: 8/22/06

Re: [zfs-discuss] Dedup question
Posted: Nov 23, 2009 11:11 PM

in response to: Colin Raven

Colin Raven wrote:
> Folks,
> I've been reading Jeff Bonwick's fascinating dedup post. This is going
> to sound like either the dumbest or the most obvious question ever
> asked, but, if you don't know and can't produce meaningful RTFM
> results....ask...so here goes:
>
> Assuming you have a dataset in a zfs pool that's been deduplicated, with
> pointers all nicely in place and so on.
>
> Doesn't this mean that you're now always and forever tied to ZFS (and
> why not? I'm certainly not saying that's a Bad Thing) because no other
> "wannabe file system" will be able to read those ZFS pointers?

no other filesystem (unless it's ZFS-compatible ;-) will be able to read
any "zfs pointers" (or much of any zfs internal data) - and it is
completely independent of whether you use deduplication or not.

If you want to have your data on a different FS, you'll have to copy it off
of zfs and onto your other FS with something like cpio or tar or maybe a
backup tool that understands both - ZFS and OFS (other ...).

> Or am I horribly misunderstanding the concept in some way?

maybe - OTOH, maybe I misread your question: is this about a different FS
*on top of* zpools/zvols? If so, I'll have to defer to Team ZFS.

HTH
Michael
--
Michael Schuster http://blogs.sun.com/recursion
Recursion, n.: see 'Recursion'
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