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--></style></head><body lang=EN-US link="#467886" vlink="#96607D" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoPlainText>I was in a Sun training class once where the instructor was extoling the virtues of ZFS at length. When I pointed out a dynamic filesystem might play havoc with DBs such as Oracle which like to keep their own disk references he allowed as how one probably shouldn't use it for them. <span style='font-family:"Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif'>😊</span><br><br>I never used ZFS for anything but that was mainly because I was used to other tools such as LVM or VxVM (Veritas Volume Manager) on both commercial UNIX and Linux variants.<br><br>P.S. I hated Solstice Disk Suite but Solaris used to require that for the boot/root drive (even if one had VxVM). VxVM was really good at doing software RAID.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>-----Original Message-----<br>From: Ale <ale-bounces@ale.org> On Behalf Of Ron via Ale<br>Sent: Thursday, January 1, 2026 7:58 PM<br>To: ale@ale.org<br>Cc: Ron <ron@bclug.ca><br>Subject: Re: [ale] to lvm or not lvm is my dillema</p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Narahari Lakshminarayana via Ale wrote on 2026-01-01 13:44:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>> Does it make sense to install LVM ?<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>There have been some solid answers already, so I'll add the option to use ZFS - not for boot but for /home at least.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>> What does it get me ?<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>ZFS has some really great features - snapshots, send / receive features <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>for duplicating data to a backup machine that's way, way better than <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>anything else I can think of:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Only changed blocks get sent. Move a multi GB file to another folder? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Then rsync sends a whole new copy. ZFS just updates the meta data.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Add a few bytes to a multi GB file? ZFS just sends the changed blocks.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>ZFS can self-heal corrupt data if redundancy is enabled (like RAID 1): <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>read a block, calculate its checksum, if mismatch read other copy of <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>data, calculate checksum, if valid send to user and replace bad copy, if <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>both copies bad - warn user.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>There are a *lot* of nifty features, it's at least worth investigating <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>as an option.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>_______________________________________________<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Ale mailing list<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><a href="mailto:Ale@ale.org"><span style='color:windowtext;text-decoration:none'>Ale@ale.org</span></a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><a href="https://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale"><span style='color:windowtext;text-decoration:none'>https://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale</span></a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><a href="http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo"><span style='color:windowtext;text-decoration:none'>http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo</span></a><o:p></o:p></p></div></body></html>