DealsOnTheWeb Daily Deal: OneCall's Weekend Sale - 20 Great Items at Great Prices All Weekend Long
Blackfriar Marketing: ZFS is Solution to Apple's Disk Storage Problems [UPDATED]
by , 1:30 PM EDT, October 10th, 2007
Apple has recognized the problems users are having with massive storage, managing hundreds of thousands of files, and backing it all up. The answer is Sun Microsystem's ZFS file system, according to Carl Howe of Blackfriars Communications on Wednesday.
"The simplest way to describe ZFS is that it is a complete rethink of how computers store information ..." Mr. How wrote. "It believes that users being aware of disks is so last century. ZFS deems all your disks a 'pool' of storage. It manages those disks for you; you only deal with files. Want to add more storage? Just add another disk to the pool, and ZFS knows what to do. Want to replace a disk? Tell ZFS to remove it from the pool, and it clears it off for you. You don't know where or how many copies the system is storing -- you just know that they are always there for you."
The result of all this, according to Mr. Howe, is that Apple will be able to solve the problems associated with terabyte drives in the home, assist with snapshotting the OS and bringing it back to a previous state, and manage offsite backups in an elegant way.
Back in 2000, Mr. Howe warned computer vendors in a Forrester report that, "they needed to make fundamental changes in how they sold and implemented storage to avoid their customers being overwhelmed by the tsunami of storage and its management headaches this decade."
"Apple's strategy of incorporating ZFS into Mac OS X demonstrates they've identified storage as a problem and will try to solve it in an elegant way. The big question is how long it will be before the rest of the personal computer industry wakes up," Mr. Howe concluded.
TMO notes that there have been several stories published in the past about whether Apple would, in fact, include ZFS with Mac OS X at some point.
[UPDATE: This story was edited for clarity.]
Observer Comments
Wed Oct 10, 2007 1:55 pm Subject: Oh really?
"ZFS will play a major role in the technology of Time Machine."
That's an interesting statement since Time Machine doesn't require ZFS to work. How can something play a "major role" in something when it's not even there?
I think what you meant to say is that ZFS does many of the same things that Time Machine does, so future versions of Time Machine will surely take advantage of this and work with ZFS drives to become more efficient in the future.
Saying something like "ZFS will eventually play a major role in the technology of Time Machine" would be more accurate. A small detail, I know, but as currently worded it could certainly make readers think that their current HFS+ hard drives won't support Time Machine, which is not true.
QuoteGuest wrote:
The title and the article are misleading.
The title implies that Apple recognises that ZFS is the solution, whereas it only recognises that it has disk storage problems.
The article suggests that Mr. Howe works at Apple (because of the comment about Time Machine and of the writing in general) and spoke at some event called Blackfriars' Marketing, whereas Blackfriars' Marketing is just yet another blog written by consultants/analysts/whatever you like to call this kind of people who like to look like they know everything better than anyone.
Bad move from TMO.
That's unduly harsh, I think. Apple recognizes that USERS have disk issues; Apple doesn't. (The result of all this, according to Mr. Howe, is that Apple will be able to solve the problems associated with terabyte drives in the home...)
I also see no subterfuge in referring to Mr. Howe's place of employment - in fact, it's abundantly clear. How can you misread "according to Carl Howe at Blackfriars' Marketing" ? John did miss a quote at the end of par. two but that's minor.
Recent Headlines - Updated Tuesday, July 8th, 2008
- Tue., 6:55 PM
- User Friendly Blog by Ted Landau - Why User Interface Design Matters
- 4:30 PM
- Apple Trackpad Secrets and Technical History
- 4:05 PM
- iPodObserver - Apple: What to Bring When Buying iPhone 3G
- 3:35 PM
- Microsoft: We Have a Noisy Competitor
- 2:50 PM
- Columnist: Safari Security Fails to Learn from Past
- 2:20 PM
- iPodObserver - Services to Unlock Mobile Phones Gaining Momentum
- 1:00 PM
- Daylite 3.7.4 Adds iWork 08, Dialectic Integration
- 12:20 PM
- FoneLink 2.1 Adds Support for More Cell Phones
- 11:25 AM
- Freeway 5.1.3 Adds Chinese Support
- 11:10 AM
- iPodObserver - Rumor: Canadian Apple Stores Won't Sell iPhone 3G
- 10:35 AM
- Microsoft Aligns with Icahn for Yahoo Takeover
- 10:00 AM
- Hot Forum Topic - Is Internet Killing the Video Star?
- 8:20 AM
- iPodObserver - MobileMe Launches on July 10
- 7:55 AM
- iPodObserver - Apple: iPhone 3G Launches at 8AM Friday
- 6:00 AM
- iPO Review - BudFits
The Mac Observer Reader Specials
- Download Typestyler, still the Ultimate Styling Tool for Internet, Print and Video Graphics. Works great in Classic with a Native OS X Version on the way. Free Tryout: www.typestyler.com
- OWC: NewerTech miniStack FireWire/USB 2.0 HD & Hub Up to 1.0TB of Performance Storage + FW/USB2 Powered Hubs - convenient & sleek 6.5" x 6.5" x 1.5" Featured: 500GB $169.99; 750GB $209.99; 1.0TB $339.99
New MacPro Memory 800Mhz With Apple Spec Heat Sink 2GB $104 / 4GB $172 / 8GB $338. Click to Maximize your Macs...
Mac observers can now play Party Poker for Mac as well as Mac casino games by going to MacPokerOnline.com.
RamJet Memory: MacBook 1Gig $39, 2Gig $78, 4Gig $195! Mac Pro 2Gig $115, 4Gig $189! 500G Seagate SATA II $139! Click hereFor the latest Apple products use Ciao a comparison website to find laptops like MacBook Air. Then find the best prices on MP3 players and use our comparison tool to evaluate cell phones.
Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

