JayG30
Contributor
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2013
- Messages
- 158
Came across this thread looking for how freenas supports multiple pools.
One reason I was thinking about 2 zpools was combining two "tenants" into 1 chassis. For instance, I work in a company where we have a 'subsidiary' at a remote location. I want to provide them a remote backup location for a onsite zfs server. While I could to that in a single zpool with datasets, it would be more work in a situation where you might need to pull that subsidiary off your systems (say you sold it). In the case of 2 zpools you could pull the disks, ship them if necessary, install them in a server, boot and import the zpool. With 1 zpool you would have to zfs send (replicate) the datasets or backup in some way, which if you are replicating a large amount of backup data you would want to do over the LAN. Basically, it would be a lot more difficult to extract that data without having spare storage to move it to in a single zpool setup. At least that is how I'm seeing it.
The other reason 2 zpools might make sense is the need for different zpool features. It might help with meeting some compliance requirements. In particular I'm thinking ENCRYPTION. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I BELIEVE if you have 2 zpools, you could encrpyt 1 and not the other. FreeNAS support full disk encryption w/ GELI so the disks that are part of that 1 zpool would be encrypted and the other could be left unencrpyted. This could be beneficial to me where I might be providing a backup for sensitive data...seperate zpool w/ encryption...still 1 management interface.
Off topic, I didn't read this thread in detail but some of the comments had me shaking my head. Grade1 bugs, questioning the competence of Sun engineers, lol. I'd love to see some code from these "rockstars" throwing those comments around. ZFS was built at a time where there was really nothing like it. Only now are we starting to see some movement in the industry to mainstream many of it's features and benefits. Those are going through the discovery of bugs all the time as well (BtrFS is lol). Many ZFS bugs are only being discovered when being pushed to limits in ways that these other systems simply haven't at this point in time. Ignoring the business dynamics of Sun and the eventual Oracle takeover, the open sourcing and eventual close sourcing of the code, the growth of Illumos and OpenZFS...it shows a real lack of understanding and appreciation for history.
One reason I was thinking about 2 zpools was combining two "tenants" into 1 chassis. For instance, I work in a company where we have a 'subsidiary' at a remote location. I want to provide them a remote backup location for a onsite zfs server. While I could to that in a single zpool with datasets, it would be more work in a situation where you might need to pull that subsidiary off your systems (say you sold it). In the case of 2 zpools you could pull the disks, ship them if necessary, install them in a server, boot and import the zpool. With 1 zpool you would have to zfs send (replicate) the datasets or backup in some way, which if you are replicating a large amount of backup data you would want to do over the LAN. Basically, it would be a lot more difficult to extract that data without having spare storage to move it to in a single zpool setup. At least that is how I'm seeing it.
The other reason 2 zpools might make sense is the need for different zpool features. It might help with meeting some compliance requirements. In particular I'm thinking ENCRYPTION. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I BELIEVE if you have 2 zpools, you could encrpyt 1 and not the other. FreeNAS support full disk encryption w/ GELI so the disks that are part of that 1 zpool would be encrypted and the other could be left unencrpyted. This could be beneficial to me where I might be providing a backup for sensitive data...seperate zpool w/ encryption...still 1 management interface.
Off topic, I didn't read this thread in detail but some of the comments had me shaking my head. Grade1 bugs, questioning the competence of Sun engineers, lol. I'd love to see some code from these "rockstars" throwing those comments around. ZFS was built at a time where there was really nothing like it. Only now are we starting to see some movement in the industry to mainstream many of it's features and benefits. Those are going through the discovery of bugs all the time as well (BtrFS is lol). Many ZFS bugs are only being discovered when being pushed to limits in ways that these other systems simply haven't at this point in time. Ignoring the business dynamics of Sun and the eventual Oracle takeover, the open sourcing and eventual close sourcing of the code, the growth of Illumos and OpenZFS...it shows a real lack of understanding and appreciation for history.
