Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019
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@xrobau said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
I'm trying to get across a REALLY COMPLEX thing
It might seem that way to you. But yelling that something is complex doesn't make it so. RAID is actually really simple. I would encourage you to check out this video that helps to explain it: https://mangolassi.it/topic/19511/
If you are new to storage these concepts might seem overwhelming. Storage is tough for everyone at first. But remaining calm, assuming that people who use this all the time (and teach it) might have some good insight for you, and starting from the basics and building up will make it actually clear that the concepts are very simple. RAID is easy when you learn how it works. You've experience the frustration of trying to skip understanding it and just memorizing words and facts and numbers; it might help you pass a class test quickly but if you get anything wrong, you won't know and you can skew off very quickly.
If you take the time and learn what RAID is and how it works, it makes it impossible to have the kinds of challenges you are seeing. If you knew what RAID was and how the math works, there is no way to have someone fool you into thinking that ZFS isn't RAID if you know how ZFS works, for example. And thinking that copies could replace parity and still scale like parity - obviously if you think about it that can't be how it works. Or saying ZRAID8, when the highest level is RAIDZ3.
So start with the basics, once you know what RAID is, it'll make these things easier and you'll see that it really isn't complex. It's just a few basic concepts to master like what parity is, how multiple parity interact, how mirroring and striping work, how you can nest, etc. It all just builds.
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@xrobau said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
And ZFS is so portable that I can literally pull the drives from a FreeNAS box, plug them into an Ubuntu machine, run 'zfs import' and all my data is there. Can you do that when you move your HDDs from a HP to a Dell to an IBM?
If I'm using any enterprise software RAID, or any matching hardware RAID system... absolutely, yes I can. But obviously wouldn't want to even with ZFS.
But let's not forget what a completely dumb idea this would be and that this is not an operational process. I realize you are desperately trying to figure out something that makes ZFS special. This definitely isn't it.
Pulling a bunch of drives from one system and moving them to another isn't really how businesses work. It sounds neat in a lab and in a class room a professor whose never really worked in IT might envision people would do this all of the time. But in the real world, this is just crazy stuff. Neat tech, sure, but everyone has it and no one uses it. The only difference is that in the ZFS / FreeNAS world people talk about this stuff as a "feature", and in the rest of the world we know that actually doing this is foolish and isn't something to talk about.
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@scottalanmiller said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
But good news, Google now ranks us the very top hit for ZRAID8 Literally, since this is the first place it has ever been mentioned.
Hahahhaha that just made my month!
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@xrobau said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
This is where the zraid stuff scales. You can have a ZRAID8 for example (requiring 9 or more disks), where there are 8 copies of the data. Literal copies. The data is replicated onto those disks. There are no parity calculations, as there are with RAID5 and 6.
So, as long as you can get the idea of parity out of your mind, suddenly the zraid stuff makes sense.This is where it was really off of the rails. All of the details in this explanation of a system that doesn't exist. Tons of "and because of this... this other weird stuff". Raving about this "literal copies" stuff, and some eight way system, the new ZRAID name, something that requires nine disks... so many false features. This wasn't casually getting mirroring and parity backwards, an entire new product world was built in his head around this fantasy he had concocted. There must be six made up things just in this one statement that all are required for the other to exist.
- ZRAID (made up term)
- ZRAID8 (ignore the ZRAID bit, there is no RAID with the number 8 in it.)
- 8 copies of data. No RAID level does this except RAID 1, and that's just a mirror.
- 9 drives requires. Why nine? Who knows, but no RAID level has ever required that.
- Copies (the wrong term for mirror but whatever) instead of parity.
- Special scaling based on this made up technology.
Six discrete fantasy products, features, or requirements in one statement. There is, in fact, not a single factual thing in this description, not even buried in the subtext.
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@xrobau said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
ZFS works on copies. So, when you write 1, 2, 3 and 4 to a zpool, you get something like this:
Disk 1: x 1 x 3 x
Disk 2: 1 x 2 x 3
Disk 3: x 1 2 x 4
Disk 4: 4 x 2 x 3
Disk 5: x x x x 4
Copies. Of. The. Data.And this, so much detail about made up products. Where did this all come from? It's like a whole novel about a fake storage technology had been written somewhere.
You know, I once was in a college class and one of the kids didn't know the difference between fiction and non-fiction and in a serious article on ethics they used the "Laws of Robots" from iRobot. This is like that, somewhere there must be some source for so much details, but what it refers to, we will never know.
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@xrobau said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
As a bit of a rebuttal, you're kinda getting confused and claming FreeNAS is a bunch of things it isn't. In fact, in that 'common myths' page is ... I dunno, random made up stuff?
@xrobau said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
So, as a Solaris administrator from way back, let's go through a couple of the misapprehensions about ZFS in that document you linked!
@xrobau said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
I am your guest ZFS expert! Ask me anything
@xrobau said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
Truly, honestly, that's not how ZFS works. I cross my heart.
@xrobau said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
Dude, I've been doing this for almost 30 years
@xrobau said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
I got my Windows cert, and CCIE, and a bunch of other things before moving into DevOps. So, please - trust me when I say I know what I'm talking about.
@xrobau said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
Honestly, this is where you are 100% wrong, and you refuse to listen to me.
@xrobau said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
But telling me I'm wrong isn't going to get you anywhere, because I know what I'm talking about here. This is my field of expertise.
@xrobau said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
Now, if you can take a breath, admit that you've learned something new about ZFS
@xrobau said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
I've been using ZFS for 15 years now, and I'm extremely confident in my knowledge.
@xrobau said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
I'm a sysadmin. I've done courses.
@xrobau said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
I now have to quote multiple things, scroll backwards and forwards, and generally waste even more of my time.
@xrobau said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
This is what frustrates me here - I know this stuff IN DEPTH
@xrobau said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
you're trying to claim that you know this better than me, when you obviously don't. It's massively frustrating.
This is the greatest collection of "I'm smart and I'm an expert" statements I've ever seen. The more someone has to tell you how brilliant they are....
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This was painful to read
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@xrobau said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
I've been using ZFS for 15 years now, and I'm extremely confident in my knowledge.
What's really funny is that after re-reading this thread, the most likely thing is that he's never used ZFS and doesn't even know what he has. There is no way he's been actually using ZFS for fifteen years. First, because there is no way someone has ever used it at all and knows so little about it. But second, because ZFS has existed for fifteen years
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@wirestyle22 said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
This was painful to read
TRUE! Wow... some serious lack of BASIC I.T. Knowledge...
**@xrobau said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
I'm a sysadmin. I've done courses**
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@CCWTech said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
@wirestyle22 said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
This was painful to read
TRUE! Wow... some serious lack of BASIC I.T. Knowledge...
Eh, I don't really care about that. We are all in a constant state of learning. I'm not in a position to judge anyone and wouldn't if I were
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@wirestyle22 said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
@CCWTech said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
@wirestyle22 said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
This was painful to read
TRUE! Wow... some serious lack of BASIC I.T. Knowledge...
Eh, I don't really care about that. We are all in a constant state of learning. I'm not in a position to judge anyone
Right, but claiming to be an expert and putting this as a basis of being an expert is laughable.
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@wirestyle22 said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
@CCWTech said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
@wirestyle22 said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
This was painful to read
TRUE! Wow... some serious lack of BASIC I.T. Knowledge...
Eh, I don't really care about that. We are all in a constant state of learning. I'm not in a position to judge anyone
Lacking basic knowledge is not bad. Lacking the most basic knowledge while repeatedly berating other people and claiming to be a domain expert so cover up a long series of lies is the issue.
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@scottalanmiller said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
@wirestyle22 said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
@CCWTech said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
@wirestyle22 said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
This was painful to read
TRUE! Wow... some serious lack of BASIC I.T. Knowledge...
Eh, I don't really care about that. We are all in a constant state of learning. I'm not in a position to judge anyone
Lacking basic knowledge is not bad. Lacking the most basic knowledge while repeatedly berating other people and claiming to be a domain expert so cover up a long series of lies is the issue.
Yeah that is the part that is a problem.
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@wirestyle22 said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
This was painful to read
Did you actually read the entire thing? Anytime Scott goes on those 8 post rants where he's writing a paragraph to every 4 words, I have to just skip those. Kudos to anyone who survived the whole thing.
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@zachary715 said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
Anytime Scott goes on those 8 post rants where he's writing a paragraph to every 4 words,
It's tough, because the "four words" is making a false claim, and then I have to provide real IT and documentation to refute it. So not a good way to make it less wordy, because I have to explain concepts behind things in each response.
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@zachary715 said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
@wirestyle22 said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
This was painful to read
Did you actually read the entire thing? Anytime Scott goes on those 8 post rants where he's writing a paragraph to every 4 words, I have to just skip those. Kudos to anyone who survived the whole thing.
It's taken some time to get used to, but I feel like it's easier to read because he's addressing each point separately. Wall of text is for sure harder to keep on point when really breaking something down. How he strings 6 replies in a minute is still a mystery to me though.
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@bnrstnr said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
How he strings 6 replies in a minute is still a mystery to me though.
Focus
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@zachary715 said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
@wirestyle22 said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
This was painful to read
Did you actually read the entire thing? Anytime Scott goes on those 8 post rants where he's writing a paragraph to every 4 words, I have to just skip those. Kudos to anyone who survived the whole thing.
I read the entire thing. If I Cherry pick I may miss a detail that would be helpful for me to learn.
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@mary said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
@xrobau I'm an intern and nothing you have listed is a special feature. I honestly thought you were a salesman or vendor on this thread.
Wow! Brutal honesty
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@scottalanmiller said in Revisiting ZFS and FreeNAS in 2019:
There is, in fact, not a single factual thing in this description, not even buried in the subtext.
If you look really really closely at the subtext there is a
buried in there. lol
