ZFS as the Root and Boot File System

Lori Alt from Sun has been working for the last 12-18 months to make ZFS suitable to be the root file systeem. She presented a 37 minute talk based on that work, "ZFS as a Root File System", at the SNIA Storage Developers' Conference.

Issues for a root file system include

• boot capability
• robustness (e.g. mirroring)
  
• installation support
• swap and dump support
• management (upgrades, patching, snaphots etc.)

Why ZFS for Root?

• pooled storage rather than fixed disk slices
• built-in redundancy
• great data integrity - no fsck!
• snapshots and clones
• zvols can be used for in-pool swap and dump

There is a project page for ZFS Boot on the OpenSolaris.org site.