On Jan 27, 2013, at 8:36 PM, Shane Ambler wrote:
> I recall reading that using partitions for zfs on FreeBSD was as good as full
> disks. For a boot zpool we need to at least have a partition for the
> boot-code and one for zfs preventing the use of a full disk.
I have been using ZFS with GPT partitions with no issues. I have NOT
compared performance between whole disk and partitioned, which is where the
difference in Solaris arises (ZFS makes better use of the physical drive's
write cache).
> ZFS is meant to be compatible between different endian systems (x86 and
> sparc) From what I have read and heard it sounds like zpools are expected be
> compatible between different OS's as well - as far as zpool versions are
> compatible - but I do expect it would depend on the partition tables being
> readable - while full disk usage should work I would also think GPT is
> compatible. OSX 10.5 (x86 and ppc) included a read-only zfs kext (before
> Apple canned the project) so it must have been able to read Solaris or
> FreeBSD created zpools which does indicate a fairly high level of
> compatibility.
The target OS must be able to read the partitioning scheme used. I am
not aware of Solaris / OpenSolaris / Illumos being able to read GPT partitions,
but it has been over 6 months since I played with any of them.
> I believe the way ZFS marks disks/partitions with the zpool data is so that
> the zpools can be recognised between systems and controllers - it would be
> interesting to know if and under what conditions a zpool can be accessed,
> both between different FreeBSD machines as well as the possibility of reading
> on a Solaris/Indiana machine. Anyone have the resources to test?
When you give ZFS the whole disk, it writes an EFI-like label on the
drive and makes us of one partition for the ZFS data. So there *is* a form of
partitioning at the lower most layer, it is just *not* user managed
partitioning.
--
Paul Kraus
Deputy Technical Director, LoneStarCon 3
Sound Coordinator, Schenectady Light Opera Company
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