Datasets and zVol

[BlazeStar]

So my FreeNAS box is running.

I've created Volumes.

Now I was during the process of creating shares.

But then I saw this :
http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Quick_Start_Guide#Configure_Storage

Which referred to Datasets and Zvol :
http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Volumes#Creating_ZFS_Datasets
http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Volumes#Creating_a_zvol

The guide describes perfectly how to manage that... however I'm still wondering WHY I would use Datasets or Zvol?

On the topic of Datasets, it is said (in the guide) that :

Code:

An existing ZFS volume can be divided into datasets. Permissions, compression, deduplication, and quotas can be set on a per dataset basis, allowing more granular control over access to storage data. A dataset is similar to a folder in that you can set permissions; it is also similar to a filesystem in that you can set properties such as quotas and compression as well as create snapshots.

I'm not sure if and why I should datasets!

I mean... by using shares, I can pretty much do the same things!

Am I missing something?

 

[diedrichg]

Do you want your sibling or parent to have access to your files? If not, then you will want to set up datasets. You could then also set up a shared dataset. Datasets can also be nested for shared/walled access.

Sent from my SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

[BlazeStar]

Well, I don't see how a dataset would prevent that... all folders can be set up as different shares.

Each share has different read / write access, and can be set based on user groups, or users!

 

[cyberjock]

That's so not true. You can setup folders to prevent access too. The question is "do datasets do something folders don't that you want".

 

[BlazeStar]

Not sure I understand your response, Cyberjock...

But if I do: Yes, the question would be "Do datasets do anything that shared folders don't?"

 

[cyberjock]

Yep.. ZFS separation and ZFS properties...