Describes the zrep script that uses zfs send and receive over network to keep a read-only copy of snapshots up-to-date.
Thanks, that looks like something I might have to try. :) Myself, over the network, I still don’t do filesystem level incremental backups, sticking to either directories or virtual machine snapshots (both of which have their shortcomings).
This looks nice. But I can’t see a reason for me to switch away from my current Sanoid/Syncoid setup. It just works too well.
I’ve been hearing about ZFS and its beneficial features for years now, but mainstream Linux installers don’t seem to support it, and I can’t be bothered to switch filesystems after installing.
Out of curiosity - can anyone tell, what might be blocking them?
Edit: answering my own question: legal issues. Licenses “potentially aren’t compatible”.
Due to potential legal incompatibilities between the CDDL and GPL, despite both being OSI-approved free software licenses which comply with DFSG, ZFS development is not supported by the Linux kernel. ZoL is a project funded by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to develop a native Linux kernel module for its massive storage requirements and super computers.
Source: https://wiki.debian.org/ZFS
Apart from the license incompatibility (which doesn’t stop it from being used by distros, as Ubuntu has shown): While it’s a fantastic filesystem for servers, it is also resource hungry and not suitable for small or portable systems.
By default it consumes 30% of RAM as cache (ARC). And, we have btrfs now, which is a huge contender “CoW” filesystem for desktop.
