Blackfriar Marketing: ZFS is Solution to Apple's Disk Storage Problems [UPDATED]
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.
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.
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.
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