Is ZFS file system readable on many platforms?

[three_jeeps]

Suppose I set up a Free NAS box with two, 4TB drives configured as RAID 1, e.g. disk mirroring.
Assume I split the one 4Tb drive into 4-1TB partitions to serve as backup targets for 3 Win XP machines, and 1 OSX 10.6 machine.
Assume there is no compressions of the backup data.

Suppose my FreeNAS box explodes and only one of the two disk drives survive.

If I take the surviving drive and put it into a external USB disk enclosure, I then plug it into a xp machine, what would I need to have XP 'see' the drive? The goal here is to grab the data stored on the disk.

Same scenario, only with a mac osx 10.6 - what do I need to do to 'see' the disk?

Suppose I compress the data on the backup disk. What do I need on the xp machine to see the data? Ditto for the OSX machine?

Assume that, in the event of a failure, I don't/can't rebuild another FreeNAS box.

Thank you for your insight into this question.

 

[cyberjock]

The ZFS disks will be mountable anywhere the OS supports ZFS and the OS version is equal to or greater than your zpool version (v28) for FreeNAS 8.3.1.

If you dig deeper you will find there is no ZFS support in any Microsoft or Apple products.

 

[three_jeeps]

So you confirmed what I though, no native support to at least read files created under the ZFS file system.
The next part of the question is: Is there any software app that can be installed in a native windoz or osx OS that will allow it to at least read and copy files into the native machines file system? e.g. NTFS for windoz, HFS+ for Mac.
An app that basically ignores all of the file protection mechanisms/access rights, etc, and just read and copy the file over to its native OS.

 

[cyberjock]

Nope. There is a ZFS on Linux project that should let you cross between FreeNAS and Linux. I do use it on my Linux machine for a 5 disk RAIDZ1, but I have not tried to cross between FreeNAS and Linux to verify it works.

 

[three_jeeps]

The ZFS disks will be mountable anywhere the OS supports ZFS and the OS version is equal to or greater than your zpool version (v28) for FreeNAS 8.3.1.

If you dig deeper you will find there is no ZFS support in any Microsoft or Apple products.

I think one alternative is to install a ZFS aware OS in a VM under windoz or OSX.... such as Linux/ZFS-fuse or Open Solaris, as well as FreeBSD.
In that case, how compatable is the ZFS in one of these OS with the ZFS under FreeNAS?

 

[cyberjock]

ZFS-fuse is crap. From what I've read its horribly unreliably and shouldn't be trusted with any data. The "ZFS on Linux" project hit a "stable" milestone back in late March or early April. That's what I use and it performs fairly well. Just like FreeNAS though, you need lots of RAM to get good performance. My machine had 16GB.

Keep in mind that there is a thread titled Please do not run FreeNAS in production as a Virtual Machine! and another called Absolutely must virtualize FreeNAS... a guide to not losing your data. Both of those are because too many people try to virtualize and lose their data forever. Be sure you read both of those and follow the advice and don't ignore ANY of the advice. Both of those are the result of over a year of people thinking they could do it and losing family pictures, personal files, etc. with no chance for recovery. Don't be one of the statistics.

If you read those, one of them says not to run it in a VM under another OS except to experiment and learn how FreeNAS works. Anything else is asking for trouble(and lost data). Virtualizing FreeNAS is one of those things that works great when it works. But the one day you have a failed hard drive or other problem that you'd think is minor is suddenly a catastrophy.

 

[fracai]

For Mac OS X there are Zevo and MacZFS. I haven't used either.

 

[tingo]

Why do it so difficult? Simply keep an usb stick with a copy of you FreeNAS version taped to the XP box; if disasters strikes, connect your FreeNAS drives to the XP box and boot it from the usb stick. Then salvage your data.

 

[apul]

Suppose my FreeNAS box explodes and only one of the two disk drives survive. If I take the surviving drive and put it into a external USB disk enclosure, I then plug it into a xp machine, what would I need to have XP 'see' the drive? The goal here is to grab the data stored on the disk

Yes, there is some way to make the ZFS file system accessible under windows, try "zfs-win" https://code.google.com/p/zfs-win/downloads/list
hope it can solves your scenario ;)

 

[cyberjock]

E

Yes, there is some way to make the ZFS file system accessible under windows, try "zfs-win" https://code.google.com/p/zfs-win/downloads/list
hope it can solves your scenario ;)

Except if I remember correctly it's like 20 versions behind the current ZFS implementation of v28 and/or v5000. So mounting your zpool with that project is still not possible. And considering its had 2 whole revisions in the last 3 years, has a single post to their "forum", I'm thinking that the project is probably non-functional.

 

[Rocky]

I think this process is being way overthought - why not just have a version of Freenas that runs in VMWare Workstation or Oracle Virtualbox running on an Windows machine - if failure strikes in scenario given - connect the drive to the Windows box, start up FreeNAS - whether via virtualbox or USB stick as earlier suggested - and recover your data?

 

[Yatti420]

Instead of worrying about the need for ZFS elsewhere I just keep multiple copies of the data I don't want to lose accross different mediums..

 

[Rocky]

That's really the solution - backups, offloading snapshots regularly, etc.. ideally the copies of the data would reside somewhere offsite in the event that the failure isn't the computer but a more catastrophic problem such as a fire...

 

[Yatti420]

One copy on a raidz2 can still fail and you can still lose everything.. Better to remove any question of not having those files... DVDs/CDs/USBs/Hdds all pretty cheap these days.. I always test everything I purchase before it goes into longterm use to not have any surprises.. Windows Readyboost for my old flash media etc.. As Rocky mentioned store a copy (or two/three) offsite just in case..