In my last article on next-gen filesystems, we did something in between a generic high altitude overview of next-gen filesystems and a walkthrough of some of btrfs’ features and usage. This time, we’re going to specifically look at what ZFS brings to the table, walking through getting it installed and using it on one of the more popular Linux distributions: Precise Pangolin. That’s the most current Long Term Support (LTS) Ubuntu release.
With that said… if Ubuntu’s not your cup of tea, don’t worry! There are lots of options for running ZFS, and very little of this walkthrough will really depend on your use of Ubuntu in particular or even Linux in general. You can always visit http://zfsonlinux.org directly for help with the initial installation if you prefer RHEL or Fedora or Arch or what have you—and if you’re a BSD fan, ZFS is available from the base installer in either PC-BSD or in the latest 10.0 release of FreeBSD itself.
Read more at ArsTechnica.
