Yet another "ZFS on HW-RAID" Thread (with benchmarks)

[alexskysilk]

Yes, I’ve had a couple of disk issues/RAM issues, but I’ve NEVER LOST a single bit.

Everything is predicated on your risk tolerance. in a homelab, I have no real qualms about running a simple ext4 filesystem on a single HDD. like you, I dont remember ever losing a single bit (at least not being aware or impacted by it)- but similarly I spent the entirety of my youth driving without a seatbelt and nothing ever happened to me.

In a business it is stupidly negligent if not against your business insurance policy prerequisites outright. A 0.001% risk that can be easily avoided must be avoided.

 

[UdoB]

I've often said that I am a ZFS fan. But hey, this is not the Butlerian Jihad with "filesystems" as the topic.

The system I am using in this very moment has a normal ext4 filesystem

 

[Johannes S]

Remember this the next time you take a flight: you’re risking your life (not your data). God created you (*you, not me!*) on Earth to live on Earth.

I don't see why my travel preferences have anything to do with this discussion. But I will remember not to interact you anymore, if you have nothing to say than insults and comparing apples with oranges. You are welcome

 

[Johannes S]

In regard to the discussion: I remember that @Falk R. mentioned several times in the German forum that using ZFS on HW RAID is ok if (and only if):

• You know what you are doing (which imho doesn't hold true for people calling others "dogmatic" for not being "pragmatic")
• Build a vpool with just one device (the virtual device provided by HW raid), so basically using the HW raid for the RAID functionality and ZFS for any zfs goodies (like storage replication, compression or deduplication). So basically: Sacrifice ZFS data integretity protection for getting the performance of HW RAID and the other ZFS features

Still it's not something I would do due to the linked part of ZFS documentation on the first page by @Dunuin https://openzfs.github.io/openzfs-d...uning/Hardware.html#hardware-raid-controllers
It's mainly an edge case if (for whatever reason) you happen to have a HW RAID adapter which doesn't support HBA mode but still need to use ZFS-specific features. But to be honest then you should plan to replace it at the next time of a hardware renewal with something, which will actually work with ZFS as designed.