ZFS

For other uses, see ZFS (disambiguation).

ZFS
Developer(s)Sun Microsystems originally, Oracle Corporation since 2010, OpenZFS since 2013
VariantsOracle ZFS, OpenZFS
IntroducedNovember 2005; 19 years ago (2005-11) with OpenSolaris
Structures
Directory contentsExtensible hash table
Limits
Max volume size256 trillion yobibytes (2128 bytes)[1]
Max file size16 exbibytes (264 bytes)
Max no. of files
  • Per directory: 248
  • Per file system: unlimited[1]
Max filename length1023 ASCII characters (fewer for multibyte character standards such as Unicode)
Features
ForksYes (called "extended attributes", but they are full-fledged streams)
AttributesPOSIX, extended attributes
File system
permissions		Unix permissions, NFSv4 ACLs
Transparent
compression		Yes
Transparent
encryption		Yes
Data deduplicationYes
Copy-on-writeYes
Other
Supported
operating systems

ZFS (previously Zettabyte File System) is a file system with volume management capabilities. It began as part of the Sun Microsystems Solaris operating system in 2001. Large parts of Solaris, including ZFS, were published under an open source license as OpenSolaris for around 5 years from 2005 before being placed under a closed source license when Oracle Corporation acquired Sun in 2009–2010. During 2005 to 2010, the open source version of ZFS was ported to Linux, Mac OS X (continued as MacZFS) and FreeBSD. In 2010, the illumos project forked a recent version of OpenSolaris, including ZFS, to continue its development as an open source project. In 2013, OpenZFS was founded to coordinate the development of open source ZFS.[3][4][5] OpenZFS maintains and manages the core ZFS code, while organizations using ZFS maintain the specific code and validation processes required for ZFS to integrate within their systems. OpenZFS is widely used in Unix-like systems.[6][7][8]

  1. ^ a b "What Is ZFS?". Oracle Solaris ZFS Administration Guide. Oracle. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved December 29, 2015.
  2. ^ "ZFS on Linux Licensing". GitHub. Retrieved May 17, 2020.
  3. ^ "The OpenZFS project launches". LWN.net. September 17, 2013. Archived from the original on October 4, 2013. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
  4. ^ "OpenZFS Announcement". OpenZFS. September 17, 2013. Archived from the original on April 2, 2018. Retrieved September 19, 2013.
  5. ^ open-zfs.org /History Archived December 24, 2013, at the Wayback Machine "OpenZFS is the truly open source successor to the ZFS project [...] Effects of the fork (2010 to date)"
  6. ^ Sean Michael Kerner (September 18, 2013). "LinuxCon: OpenZFS moves Open Source Storage Forward". infostor.com. Archived from the original on March 14, 2014. Retrieved October 9, 2013.
  7. ^ "The OpenZFS project launches". LWN.net. September 17, 2013. Archived from the original on October 11, 2016. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
  8. ^ "OpenZFS – Communities co-operating on ZFS code and features". freebsdnews.net. September 23, 2013. Archived from the original on October 14, 2013. Retrieved March 14, 2014.