(Time Machine == ZFS)?

[tongodeon]

A while ago I'd heard a rumor that the next version of OSX might use ZFS. (ZFS is a disk format. Other disk formats include HFS+ (OSX), NTFS/FAT (Windows), or EXT2/EXT3/ReiserFS (Linux). ZFS lets you do fancy things like pool disks and verify data integrity not to mention store very, very large files.)

I'm wondering whether ZFS's snapshot

Comments

[haineux]

"Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" (ie. HFS+J) format volumes work with Leopard/Time Machine and older OS versions just fine.

I'm not sure where they're hiding the older versions of files, but you can go back and forth between Tiger and Leopard without reformatting.

[wisn]

It sounds like the constraint is in keeping a disk on a tether or having a designated OSXS in range. Not a deal-breaker for workstations but more inconvenient to run from a laptop every night for us home office folks without designated work areas.

The security mavens will pounce on this. Will you have a means to retroactively delete a file through the system's history? The technology that protects you when you accidentally delete a file is the same that will make you very, very vulnerable if, for example, you read about right-wing Islamic terrorism from your laptop before going through US Customs. The abililty to designate files/directories to not back up means having the foresight to configure it properly beforehand.

I desperately hope the UI changes. It's schlocky.

[mkb_cbr]

I knew Hans Reiser when I was in school. I doubt that any of the folk who knew him then will ever willingly use his filesystem.

[bsdcat]

ZFS snapshots aren't the same as fs versioning; there's another mechanism here whereby the blocks no longer part of the current file are still tracked. I don't think they're similar.

OTOH, Leopard will apparently include DTRACE, a pretty significant Solaris technology.