OpenZFS on Linux and FreeBSD
Storage, Replication, and Data Integrity in Production.
Planned
ZFS combines the volume manager and the filesystem, so the pool knows where every block lives and whether it still matches its checksum. This book will cover that model on both Linux and FreeBSD: how pools and vdevs are laid out, how datasets and snapshots behave, how replication moves data between machines, and how scrubbing catches silent corruption before it spreads.
Status: planned title. Writing has not started. The repository and the cover exist; the scope below is the plan.
The first edition will ship DRM-free as PDF and EPUB, with free updates.
The storage model, end to end.
No chapters are written yet. This is the plan: the areas the book will cover, in the order a reader would meet them. It targets OpenZFS on current Linux and FreeBSD.
- Pools and vdevs Mirrors, raidz, and special vdevs, and how pool geometry sets redundancy and throughput.
- Datasets and properties Filesystems, volumes, compression, and quotas, with the inheritance model behind them.
- Snapshots and clones Point-in-time snapshots, rollbacks, and writable clones for safe change and recovery.
- Replication send and receive for backup and migration, including incremental and resumable streams.
- Data integrity End-to-end checksums, scrubbing, and self-healing on redundant pools.
- Operations and tuning ARC and cache behavior, capacity planning, and routine pool maintenance.
For engineers who trust their storage with data.
This book is for people who run or evaluate ZFS on servers. It assumes comfort with the command line and basic storage concepts, and it explains the ZFS model rather than listing recipes.
- Storage and platform engineers choosing a filesystem for new servers, who want to understand ZFS before committing to it.
- Operators already running ZFS who want a clear model of pools, datasets, and replication rather than a set of commands.
- Backup and SRE teams who need send, receive, and scrubbing to be dependable parts of their recovery plan.
Planned.
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