{"slug": "zfs", "name": "ZFS", "category": "files", "category_name": "Files, sync and backup", "description": "Open-source copy-on-write filesystem and volume manager with snapshots, checksums, compression and encryption.", "recommenders": 32, "commenters": 49, "warners": 4, "score": 27.958, "rising": 10.11, "first": "2025-11-08", "latest": "2026-10-31", "why": "Loved for snapshots and easy rollback, native encryption and send-based backups, and stability that several users found better than Btrfs.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 35, "neutral": 14, "compare": 0, "warn": 4}, "spark": [4, 1, 6, 0, 2, 1, 0, 2, 3, 5, 7, 4], "listed": true, "loved": ["Snapshots & rollback", "Stability"], "caveat": "Linux integration", "short_quote": "I absolutely love ZFS. I use it on FreeBSD for all disks on the whole system", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://openzfs.org", "pricing": "open source", "aliases": ["ZFS"], "verdict": [{"text": "Loved for snapshots and easy rollback", "cites": [{"id": 748407090, "item_id": 46775443, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46775443", "by": "anon291", "date": "2026-01-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I just revert to an old zfs snapshot", "excerpt": "Why is windows so hard? In my many years of Linux, I've never managed to brick a computer. Microsoft makes computers hard for no reason. At worst, in the olden days I used to just boot into a livecd and fix my issue, including using an old kernel. Today, I just revert to an old zfs snapshot or if something is truly awful just pull my archived zfs snapshot. I mean obviously windows can be reinstalled and restored, but", "context": "long-time Linux user", "use_case": "snapshot rollback", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows 11's Patch Tuesday nightmare gets worse"}, {"id": 763270705, "item_id": 47704419, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47704419", "by": "wolvoleo", "date": "2026-04-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The good thing is having ZFS snapshots as a safety net though.", "excerpt": "Interesting. I use FreeBSD on my desktop too but it's really a desktop so I don't have to bother with WiFi or bluetooth. I generally dislike laptops for ergonomic reasons, and I never bring my computers anywhere anyway so I just buy NUCs. Not having to buy for a display, keyboard, trackpad, battery helps keep the price down. I like it for several reasons. It's a holistic system which means it's much easier to underst", "context": "", "use_case": "snapshots", "switched_from": "", "story": "FreeBSD Laptop Compatibility: Top Laptops to Use with FreeBSD"}, {"id": 736735424, "item_id": 46045964, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46045964", "by": "chungy", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use ZFS on both my desktop and laptop each with Linux", "excerpt": "I use ZFS on both my desktop and laptop each with Linux (in addition to a server, also running ZFS, but on FreeBSD). It's actually really not terribly hard, but I might be biased since I've been doing since it 2011 :) If you can/are willing to use UEFI, ZFSBootMenu is a Linux oriented solution that replicates the power of FreeBSD's bootloader, so you can manage snapshots and boot environments and rollback checkpoints", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem on desktop, laptop, server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Unpowered SSDs slowly lose data"}, {"id": 777398065, "item_id": 48587379, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48587379", "by": "paffdragon", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm setting up a FreeBSD server where ZFS was the natural choice, again snapshots, boot environments, native encryption and just maturity/reliability.", "excerpt": "I didn't see in the post, but have you considered also Btrfs if you are on Linux? Currently, I use Btrfs on Synology, mainly because snapshots and checksums are nice, but I never really did the work to do benchmarks against other FS. In the past my choice was Ext4 or XFS with LUKS/LVM, then Btrfs matured and since then I moved to it. So far I had no issues, but YMMV, some people consider it still not entirely reliabl", "context": "", "use_case": "FreeBSD server filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "Benchmarking OpenZFS vs. EXT4 for My NAS"}]}, {"text": ", native encryption and send-based backups", "cites": [{"id": 777420016, "item_id": 48588751, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48588751", "by": "hpb42", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "What made me decide to use ZFS instead is that Btrfs does not have [yet] transparent encryption", "excerpt": "I use ZFS on my laptops and desktop but kind of considered Btrfs for this new NAS. What made me decide to use ZFS instead is that Btrfs does not have [yet] transparent encryption, I'd need to use dm-crypt/LUKS. ZFS has that natively, so :shrug: When transparent encryption lands on Btrfs, I may consider it for new machines (or Bcachefs if it gets back in the Linux Kernel).", "context": "uses ZFS on laptops, desktop and NAS", "use_case": "NAS filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "Benchmarking OpenZFS vs. EXT4 for My NAS"}, {"id": 793304432, "item_id": 49581527, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49581527", "by": "aborsy", "date": "2026-09-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The best backup solution that I found is ZFS send", "excerpt": "The best backup solution that I found is ZFS send (even if it\u2019s not strictly a back up tool). ZFS send raw encrypted stream from laptop to a server automatically. Encrypted compressed incremental. No need to verify: if snapshot exists at destination, there is no error. If a problem is encountered, restore from redundancy. Errors can be detected and corrected. Restic has also been working great. The problem is that, i", "context": "", "use_case": "encrypted incremental backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Creating backup storage sucks"}, {"id": 795808928, "item_id": 49738058, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49738058", "by": "Helmut10001", "date": "2026-09-17", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use zfs sync snapshots in raw mode (-R)", "excerpt": "Exactly! My offsite Backup box boots using a Shelly Plug S set on timer; it doesn't need to unlock the enrypted ZFS datasets because I use zfs sync snapshots in raw mode (-R). After the zfs scrupt, the box sends an email to me and shuts down. Next week: Repeat.", "context": "runs an offsite backup box", "use_case": "encrypted offsite backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backups Aren't Simple"}]}, {"text": ", and stability that several users found better than Btrfs.", "cites": [{"id": 796426449, "item_id": 49776653, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49776653", "by": "sandreas", "date": "2026-09-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to ZFS and never Bad a Problem again.", "excerpt": "This. Btrfs blew up without ANY reason at all in my case. Rebooted and the system won't even recognize any filesystem. All btrfs tools fails to recover a single file. Here is my journey: https://forum.cgsecurity.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=39143 I switched to ZFS and never Bad a Problem again.", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem", "switched_from": "Btrfs", "story": "Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip"}, {"id": 790158961, "item_id": 49384935, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49384935", "by": "shepherdjerred", "date": "2026-08-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I\u2019ve found ZFS much more stable", "excerpt": "btrfs is stable?? I used it a couple of years ago and really didn\u2019t have a positive experience. I\u2019ve found ZFS much more stable", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem", "switched_from": "Btrfs", "story": "Linux 7.2 Released"}, {"id": 743570388, "item_id": 46473149, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46473149", "by": "sandreas", "date": "2026-01-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to ZFS with ZFSBootMenu[2] and never looked back.", "excerpt": "Long time Linux Desktop user here. I really think Linux is a great choice as a Desktop in days of liquid glass and webviews. There are a lot of choices to make, but in the end it is working out really well (at least for me). KDE and the new COSMIC desktop environment with tiling support are tempting, but for now I keep using GNOME until I have more time to check them out. The things I personally had problems with is ", "context": "Long time Linux Desktop user", "use_case": "filesystem", "switched_from": "Btrfs", "story": "2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop"}]}, {"text": " The most common caveat is that it is out-of-tree on Linux, where some advise running it on FreeBSD instead", "cites": [{"id": 737581794, "item_id": 46098862, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46098862", "by": "jcalvinowens", "date": "2025-11-30", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Don't use ZFS on Linux. If you really want ZFS, run FreeBSD.", "excerpt": "I've been running homebuilt NAS for a decade. My advice is going to irritate the purists: * Don't use raid5. Use btrfs-raid1 or use mdraid10 with >=2 far-copies. * Don't use raid6. Use btrfs-raid1c3 or use mdraid10 with >=3 far-copies. * Don't use ZFS on Linux. If you really want ZFS, run FreeBSD. The multiple copy formats outperform the parity formats on reads by a healthy margin, both in btrfs and in mdraid. They'r", "context": "runs homebuilt NAS for a decade", "use_case": "NAS filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "Don't throw away your old PC\u2013it makes a better NAS than anything you can buy"}, {"id": 736706545, "item_id": 46044159, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46044159", "by": "lloeki", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "warn", "quote": "the zfs module situation: when I tried it, the module silently failed to build properly and this resulted in a broken system", "excerpt": "Even the much-maligned raid5/6 is basically fine\u2020. If you're concerned about the write hole, use -m DUP/raid1/raid1c2 instead of -m raid5. Plus raid-stripe-tree\u2020\u2020 is coming - didn't check the status of it recently. Many horror stories are because, while btrfs is fine, the operational model and tooling have some footguns which can cause either straight up data loss (due to operator error, but arguably that's really du", "context": "", "use_case": "data array filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why I (Still) Love Linux ?"}, {"id": 737645538, "item_id": 46102846, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46102846", "by": "QuiEgo", "date": "2025-11-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I also use a ZFS mirrored pool on SSDs for \u201chot\u201d files", "excerpt": "I use mergerfs + snapraid on my HDDs for \u201ccold\u201d storage for the same reason: noise. Snapraid sync and scrub runs at 4am when I am not in the same room as the NAS. The drives stay spun down 99% of the time, because I also use a ZFS mirrored pool on SSDs for \u201chot\u201d files, although Btrfs could also work if you're opposed to ZFS because it's out of tree. Basically using this idea, but with straight Debian instead of ProxM", "context": "home NAS user", "use_case": "hot file storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Don't throw away your old PC\u2013it makes a better NAS than anything you can buy"}, {"id": 796312064, "item_id": 49769504, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49769504", "by": "sippingabonedry", "date": "2026-09-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm saying ZFS on another OS.", "excerpt": "So two filesystems that are essentially shunned from the Linux kernel and permanent second-class citizens, and one that was removed from Red Hat and has a questionable history of reliability. Oh boy which do I choose? I'm saying ZFS on another OS.", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip"}]}, {"text": ", and a few users report pools that corrupted or crashed the kernel on mount.", "cites": [{"id": 796551696, "item_id": 49784481, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49784481", "by": "burnt-resistor", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I used ZFS until it self-corrupted and refused to mount rw ever again.", "excerpt": "I used ZFS until it self-corrupted and refused to mount rw ever again. Community support was totally unhelpful and there was no resolution except buy another array and use something else. There's way too much ZFS cult fanboy glazing out there it doesn't deserve.", "context": "", "use_case": "array storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip"}, {"id": 795468609, "item_id": 49716788, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49716788", "by": "sellmesoap", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I once had a ZFS get to a state where it would crash the kernel on mount", "excerpt": "I never dug into the failure, but I once had a ZFS get to a state where it would crash the kernel on mount, I was able to mount it with checks turned off an recover what was important, but it was a spooky experience. I live on the bleeding edge of file systems for my desktop, I was on reiser4 back when that was fresh, I daily drive bcachefs (it's been great!) Mostly I've been lucky, I don't usually keep an openbsd sy", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "GEFS on OpenBSD: A Early Preview"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Snapshots & rollback", "summary": "Snapshots, clones and boot environments act as a safety net for reverting systems and files.", "quotes": [{"id": 748407090, "item_id": 46775443, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46775443", "by": "anon291", "date": "2026-01-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I just revert to an old zfs snapshot", "excerpt": "Why is windows so hard? In my many years of Linux, I've never managed to brick a computer. Microsoft makes computers hard for no reason. At worst, in the olden days I used to just boot into a livecd and fix my issue, including using an old kernel. Today, I just revert to an old zfs snapshot or if something is truly awful just pull my archived zfs snapshot. I mean obviously windows can be reinstalled and restored, but", "context": "long-time Linux user", "use_case": "snapshot rollback", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows 11's Patch Tuesday nightmare gets worse"}, {"id": 763270705, "item_id": 47704419, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47704419", "by": "wolvoleo", "date": "2026-04-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The good thing is having ZFS snapshots as a safety net though.", "excerpt": "Interesting. I use FreeBSD on my desktop too but it's really a desktop so I don't have to bother with WiFi or bluetooth. I generally dislike laptops for ergonomic reasons, and I never bring my computers anywhere anyway so I just buy NUCs. Not having to buy for a display, keyboard, trackpad, battery helps keep the price down. I like it for several reasons. It's a holistic system which means it's much easier to underst", "context": "", "use_case": "snapshots", "switched_from": "", "story": "FreeBSD Laptop Compatibility: Top Laptops to Use with FreeBSD"}, {"id": 736735424, "item_id": 46045964, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46045964", "by": "chungy", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use ZFS on both my desktop and laptop each with Linux", "excerpt": "I use ZFS on both my desktop and laptop each with Linux (in addition to a server, also running ZFS, but on FreeBSD). It's actually really not terribly hard, but I might be biased since I've been doing since it 2011 :) If you can/are willing to use UEFI, ZFSBootMenu is a Linux oriented solution that replicates the power of FreeBSD's bootloader, so you can manage snapshots and boot environments and rollback checkpoints", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem on desktop, laptop, server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Unpowered SSDs slowly lose data"}]}, {"label": "Stability", "summary": "Users describe it as stable and mature, with several switching after bad Btrfs failures.", "quotes": [{"id": 796426449, "item_id": 49776653, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49776653", "by": "sandreas", "date": "2026-09-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to ZFS and never Bad a Problem again.", "excerpt": "This. Btrfs blew up without ANY reason at all in my case. Rebooted and the system won't even recognize any filesystem. All btrfs tools fails to recover a single file. Here is my journey: https://forum.cgsecurity.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=39143 I switched to ZFS and never Bad a Problem again.", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem", "switched_from": "Btrfs", "story": "Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip"}, {"id": 790158961, "item_id": 49384935, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49384935", "by": "shepherdjerred", "date": "2026-08-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I\u2019ve found ZFS much more stable", "excerpt": "btrfs is stable?? I used it a couple of years ago and really didn\u2019t have a positive experience. I\u2019ve found ZFS much more stable", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem", "switched_from": "Btrfs", "story": "Linux 7.2 Released"}, {"id": 734485170, "item_id": 45905323, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45905323", "by": "clan", "date": "2025-11-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Native ZFS. Stable, mature, safe and with all the features you can dream of.", "excerpt": "I daily drive FreeBSD on my desktop with KDE. It is not as smooth as Linux and requires a little more tinkering compared to Linux. But I love it! The killer features for me: - The pf firewall. Rules you actually understand! - Jails! When you cannot have Zones this will do. - Native ZFS. Stable, mature, safe and with all the features you can dream of. - Linuxulator. Binary compatibility with Linux if need be. Can be p", "context": "daily drives FreeBSD", "use_case": "filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "A brief look at FreeBSD"}]}, {"label": "Native encryption", "summary": "Built-in encryption avoids layering LUKS/dm-crypt and works on root from some installers.", "quotes": [{"id": 777420016, "item_id": 48588751, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48588751", "by": "hpb42", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "What made me decide to use ZFS instead is that Btrfs does not have [yet] transparent encryption", "excerpt": "I use ZFS on my laptops and desktop but kind of considered Btrfs for this new NAS. What made me decide to use ZFS instead is that Btrfs does not have [yet] transparent encryption, I'd need to use dm-crypt/LUKS. ZFS has that natively, so :shrug: When transparent encryption lands on Btrfs, I may consider it for new machines (or Bcachefs if it gets back in the Linux Kernel).", "context": "uses ZFS on laptops, desktop and NAS", "use_case": "NAS filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "Benchmarking OpenZFS vs. EXT4 for My NAS"}, {"id": 796500561, "item_id": 49781285, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49781285", "by": "fghorow", "date": "2026-09-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "ZFS on root available from the installer -- encrypted even if that's your jam.", "excerpt": "Check out proxmox. Debian base with Debian apt repos available for standard stuff, with ZFS built into their kernels. Easy to install. And, if you insist on running TrueNAS (or whatever) just stash it in a container or KVM box. (Edited to add: I forgot! ZFS on root available from the installer -- encrypted even if that's your jam.)", "context": "", "use_case": "root filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "Custom home server built from spare parts"}, {"id": 803545888, "item_id": 50221618, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50221618", "by": "atmosx", "date": "2026-10-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've been using encrypted datasets for years without problems.", "excerpt": "I've been using encrypted datasets for years without problems. I don't used `send` and `receive` for backups though.", "context": "", "use_case": "encrypted datasets", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Uberblok \u2013 an interactive museum of ZFS internals"}]}, {"label": "Send/receive backups", "summary": "Encrypted, compressed, incremental replication with zfs send is used for offsite backups.", "quotes": [{"id": 793304432, "item_id": 49581527, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49581527", "by": "aborsy", "date": "2026-09-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The best backup solution that I found is ZFS send", "excerpt": "The best backup solution that I found is ZFS send (even if it\u2019s not strictly a back up tool). ZFS send raw encrypted stream from laptop to a server automatically. Encrypted compressed incremental. No need to verify: if snapshot exists at destination, there is no error. If a problem is encountered, restore from redundancy. Errors can be detected and corrected. Restic has also been working great. The problem is that, i", "context": "", "use_case": "encrypted incremental backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Creating backup storage sucks"}, {"id": 795808928, "item_id": 49738058, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49738058", "by": "Helmut10001", "date": "2026-09-17", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use zfs sync snapshots in raw mode (-R)", "excerpt": "Exactly! My offsite Backup box boots using a Shelly Plug S set on timer; it doesn't need to unlock the enrypted ZFS datasets because I use zfs sync snapshots in raw mode (-R). After the zfs scrupt, the box sends an email to me and shuts down. Next week: Repeat.", "context": "runs an offsite backup box", "use_case": "encrypted offsite backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backups Aren't Simple"}, {"id": 795790608, "item_id": 49736913, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49736913", "by": "Gud", "date": "2026-09-17", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use ZFS and do off site backups using rsync.net.", "excerpt": "I use ZFS and do off site backups using rsync.net.", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backups Aren't Simple"}]}, {"label": "Compression", "summary": "Transparent per-dataset compression such as lz4 and zstd saves space on the fly.", "quotes": [{"id": 793626336, "item_id": 49601646, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49601646", "by": "igoose1", "date": "2026-09-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "ZFS successfully and transparently recompressed everything on the fly.", "excerpt": "I have an anecdote about compressed data. When I studied at school, I used ZFS with lz4 enabled on my working machine. During that times I had a task of parsing Wikipedia's data. I had enough brain cells to find compressed dumps and download them with aria2 but not enough to leave the file compressed. I ran a decompressor. It'd been taking longer than I expected so I went out to walk a dog. Imagine how fast me and th", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem with compression", "switched_from": "", "story": "bzip3"}, {"id": 781272609, "item_id": 48829538, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48829538", "by": "igoose1", "date": "2026-07-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have autosnapshots enabled, and I tune compression methods on specific datasets", "excerpt": "10 months ago I've built a Raspberry Pi 5 mini NAS with 3 SSDs connected through RADXA Penta Hat. It runs OpenMediaVault, system is on the SDcard, other data are on the SSD ZFS pool. I have autosnapshots enabled, and I tune compression methods on specific datasets (lz4 for almost everything, zstd for file backups). We use it for storing (backups, media files), playing (PaperMC), and watching (Jellyfin). I can only co", "context": "Built a Raspberry Pi 5 NAS", "use_case": "NAS storage pool", "switched_from": "", "story": "How to Build a Minimal ZFS NAS Without Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS"}, {"id": 802171216, "item_id": 50135701, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50135701", "by": "jbellis", "date": "2026-10-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "fs-level compression, I use ZFS bc Btrfs has massive contention problems with concurrent Rust builds", "excerpt": "this looks like a bug, but even normal happy-path codex creates many GB of logs, openai apparently considers this fine bc it's been going on for months two things help: 1. fs-level compression, I use ZFS bc Btrfs has massive contention problems with concurrent Rust builds 2. Archive your old sessions using something like sessionwiki (https://github.com/youdie006/sessionwiki), I've integrated this into my control plan", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem compression", "switched_from": "", "story": "Codex Desktop continuously generates Crashpad pending dumps"}]}, {"label": "Data integrity", "summary": "Checksums detect and fix bitrot transparently.", "quotes": [{"id": 743719120, "item_id": 46482445, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46482445", "by": "mysteria", "date": "2026-01-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love my ZFS server as it handles all that transparently", "excerpt": "Keep in mind bitrot is a real thing if you roll your own storage. While most cloud storage solutions store multiple copies of your data I'm not sure if all of them have a system that checks for and fixes bitrot. I love my ZFS server as it handles all that transparently but that's really not an option for everyone.", "context": "", "use_case": "home storage with bitrot protection", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why your early 2000s photos are probably lost forever"}, {"id": 793304432, "item_id": 49581527, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49581527", "by": "aborsy", "date": "2026-09-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The best backup solution that I found is ZFS send", "excerpt": "The best backup solution that I found is ZFS send (even if it\u2019s not strictly a back up tool). ZFS send raw encrypted stream from laptop to a server automatically. Encrypted compressed incremental. No need to verify: if snapshot exists at destination, there is no error. If a problem is encountered, restore from redundancy. Errors can be detected and corrected. Restic has also been working great. The problem is that, i", "context": "", "use_case": "encrypted incremental backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Creating backup storage sucks"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Linux integration", "summary": "It is out-of-tree on Linux, and one user's kernel module silently failed to build and broke the system.", "quotes": [{"id": 737581794, "item_id": 46098862, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46098862", "by": "jcalvinowens", "date": "2025-11-30", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Don't use ZFS on Linux. If you really want ZFS, run FreeBSD.", "excerpt": "I've been running homebuilt NAS for a decade. My advice is going to irritate the purists: * Don't use raid5. Use btrfs-raid1 or use mdraid10 with >=2 far-copies. * Don't use raid6. Use btrfs-raid1c3 or use mdraid10 with >=3 far-copies. * Don't use ZFS on Linux. If you really want ZFS, run FreeBSD. The multiple copy formats outperform the parity formats on reads by a healthy margin, both in btrfs and in mdraid. They'r", "context": "runs homebuilt NAS for a decade", "use_case": "NAS filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "Don't throw away your old PC\u2013it makes a better NAS than anything you can buy"}, {"id": 736706545, "item_id": 46044159, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46044159", "by": "lloeki", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "warn", "quote": "the zfs module situation: when I tried it, the module silently failed to build properly and this resulted in a broken system", "excerpt": "Even the much-maligned raid5/6 is basically fine\u2020. If you're concerned about the write hole, use -m DUP/raid1/raid1c2 instead of -m raid5. Plus raid-stripe-tree\u2020\u2020 is coming - didn't check the status of it recently. Many horror stories are because, while btrfs is fine, the operational model and tooling have some footguns which can cause either straight up data loss (due to operator error, but arguably that's really du", "context": "", "use_case": "data array filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why I (Still) Love Linux ?"}, {"id": 737645538, "item_id": 46102846, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46102846", "by": "QuiEgo", "date": "2025-11-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I also use a ZFS mirrored pool on SSDs for \u201chot\u201d files", "excerpt": "I use mergerfs + snapraid on my HDDs for \u201ccold\u201d storage for the same reason: noise. Snapraid sync and scrub runs at 4am when I am not in the same room as the NAS. The drives stay spun down 99% of the time, because I also use a ZFS mirrored pool on SSDs for \u201chot\u201d files, although Btrfs could also work if you're opposed to ZFS because it's out of tree. Basically using this idea, but with straight Debian instead of ProxM", "context": "home NAS user", "use_case": "hot file storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Don't throw away your old PC\u2013it makes a better NAS than anything you can buy"}]}, {"label": "Pool corruption", "summary": "A few users had pools that refused to mount read-write or crashed the kernel on mount.", "quotes": [{"id": 796551696, "item_id": 49784481, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49784481", "by": "burnt-resistor", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I used ZFS until it self-corrupted and refused to mount rw ever again.", "excerpt": "I used ZFS until it self-corrupted and refused to mount rw ever again. Community support was totally unhelpful and there was no resolution except buy another array and use something else. There's way too much ZFS cult fanboy glazing out there it doesn't deserve.", "context": "", "use_case": "array storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip"}, {"id": 795468609, "item_id": 49716788, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49716788", "by": "sellmesoap", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I once had a ZFS get to a state where it would crash the kernel on mount", "excerpt": "I never dug into the failure, but I once had a ZFS get to a state where it would crash the kernel on mount, I was able to mount it with checks turned off an recover what was important, but it was a spooky experience. I live on the bleeding edge of file systems for my desktop, I was on reiser4 back when that was fresh, I daily drive bcachefs (it's been great!) Mostly I've been lucky, I don't usually keep an openbsd sy", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "GEFS on OpenBSD: A Early Preview"}]}, {"label": "Non-ECC RAM", "summary": "Users advise ECC or rigorous RAM testing because bad memory can cause on-disk changes.", "quotes": [{"id": 796524816, "item_id": 49782801, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49782801", "by": "Lammy", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "ZFS will actually modify your files on disk as a side effect of a read-only operation", "excerpt": "> The rest of the upgrade came out of my junk drawers. Two DDR4 sticks from an old laptop take the memory to the platform maximum of 32 GB Realtalk: make sure you are religious about testing your RAM if you're going to run ZFS with non-ECC RAM. I'm not going to say \u201cdon't do it\u201d, but know what you're getting into and how to protect yourself from this failure mode. It's unintuitive, but ZFS will actually modify your f", "context": "ran ZFS on FreeBSD, later a dedicated ECC storage system", "use_case": "file storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Custom home server built from spare parts"}, {"id": 743419952, "item_id": 46463747, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46463747", "by": "TacticalCoder", "date": "2026-01-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use and know ZFS is good but I'd prefer to run it on a machine supporting ECC.", "excerpt": "This is getting lots of upvotes and rightfully so. I think people would love more posts about FreeBSD: especially about ZFS and bhyve (the FreeBSD hypervisor). It's a bit sad that this Lenovo ThinkCentre ain't using ECC. I use and know ZFS is good but I'd prefer to run it on a machine supporting ECC. I never tried FreeBSD but I'm reading more and more about it and it looks like although FreeBSD has always had its reg", "context": "", "use_case": "home NAS filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "FreeBSD: Home NAS, part 1 \u2013 configuring ZFS mirror (RAID1)"}]}, {"label": "Memory use", "summary": "On macOS, one user notes the ARC takes memory away from the system.", "quotes": [{"id": 803437680, "item_id": 50214855, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50214855", "by": "ProllyInfamous", "date": "2026-10-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It is absolutely incredible technology.", "excerpt": "I began learning ZFS (TrueNAS and the macOS-plugin) just two weeks ago. It is absolutely incredible technology. >I use it with ... most of my external disks with macOS How do you personally deal with the terrible macOS default SAMBA client (if using SMB shares)? I can get saturated single-file transfers, but even deleting 100+ small files takes a longgggggg time. It is my understanding the the macOS only allows singl", "context": "Began learning ZFS two weeks ago", "use_case": "NAS and disk storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Uberblok \u2013 an interactive museum of ZFS internals"}]}], "who": [{"by": "ProllyInfamous", "context": "Began learning ZFS two weeks ago", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50214855", "date": "2026-10-23"}, {"by": "QuantumNomad_", "context": "FreeBSD user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50198452", "date": "2026-10-22"}, {"by": "Lammy", "context": "ran ZFS on FreeBSD, later a dedicated ECC storage system", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49782801", "date": "2026-09-21"}, {"by": "Helmut10001", "context": "runs an offsite backup box", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49738058", "date": "2026-09-17"}, {"by": "ssl-3", "context": "Runs ZFS on a USB-attached SSD for years", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49496486", "date": "2026-08-30"}, {"by": "pkghost", "context": "homelab with many repos", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49415005", "date": "2026-08-24"}, {"by": "hylaride", "context": "worked at a Sun shop circa 2008-12", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49168964", "date": "2026-08-04"}, {"by": "permalac", "context": "built DIY NAS", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49131951", "date": "2026-08-01"}, {"by": "igoose1", "context": "Built a Raspberry Pi 5 NAS", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48829538", "date": "2026-07-08"}, {"by": "KaiserPro", "context": "looked after storage arrays for VFX places", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48829382", "date": "2026-07-08"}, {"by": "Confiks", "context": "building a ZFS NAS", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48827630", "date": "2026-07-07"}, {"by": "hpb42", "context": "uses ZFS on laptops, desktop and NAS", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48588751", "date": "2026-06-18"}], "tags": ["for home NAS", "for FreeBSD users", "for Linux desktops", "for backups", "for VM and container hosts"], "use_cases": ["filesystem", "nas filesystem", "nas storage", "root filesystem", "storage arrays", "snapshots"], "compared": [{"slug": "btrfs", "name": "Btrfs", "co": 14, "switched_from": 3, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "freebsd", "name": "FreeBSD", "co": 8, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "bcachefs", "name": "bcachefs", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "proxmox", "name": "Proxmox", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "lvm", "name": "LVM", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "docker", "name": "Docker", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "zfsbootmenu", "name": "ZFSBootMenu", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "debian", "name": "Debian", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49768833", "title": "Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip", "mentions": 5}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50180257", "title": "Show HN: Uberblok \u2013 an interactive museum of ZFS internals", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48827325", "title": "How to Build a Minimal ZFS NAS Without Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46096781", "title": "Don't throw away your old PC\u2013it makes a better NAS than anything you can buy", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49776960", "title": "Custom home server built from spare parts", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49732513", "title": "Backups Aren't Simple", "mentions": 2}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 4, "warn": 2, "neutral": 2}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 6}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-03": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 2}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 2, "recommend": 3}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 2, "recommend": 5}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 7, "warn": 2, "neutral": 3}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 805059072, "item_id": 50316192, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50316192", "by": "ProllyInfamous", "date": "2026-10-31", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "two of my three ZFS implementations are entirely local", "excerpt": "This is correct; two of my three ZFS implementations are entirely local... the third (public-facing) covers the other twos' \"limited usefulness.\" Perhaps a vulnerability still exists (for one offline NAS, only): I use dedicated NICs (on each end) to direct-link my online NAS (which is otherwise local network, only, on a separate NIC), for routine backup. Perhaps this leaves a bridge-LAN vulnerability? But one is enti", "context": "", "use_case": "NAS storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Polymarket 1h halt after vendor compromise; affected users will be 'made whole'"}, {"id": 804427761, "item_id": 50276735, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50276735", "by": "craftkiller", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Datto which gave us native encryption on ZFS (shout out to Tom for writing that!)", "excerpt": "> no contributions That's just obviously not true. Check out the commit history on FreeBSD and look at all the contributions from Netflix. Off the top of my head they contributed kTLS and asynchronous sendfile which made it such that a single syscall could send the full contents of a file over a socket even with TLS. Grepping through the git logs for the \"Sponsored by\" lines shows these top results: 15925 The FreeBSD", "context": "", "use_case": "native encryption", "switched_from": "", "story": "AlpineBSD"}, {"id": 803545888, "item_id": 50221618, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50221618", "by": "atmosx", "date": "2026-10-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've been using encrypted datasets for years without problems.", "excerpt": "I've been using encrypted datasets for years without problems. I don't used `send` and `receive` for backups though.", "context": "", "use_case": "encrypted datasets", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Uberblok \u2013 an interactive museum of ZFS internals"}, {"id": 803437680, "item_id": 50214855, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50214855", "by": "ProllyInfamous", "date": "2026-10-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It is absolutely incredible technology.", "excerpt": "I began learning ZFS (TrueNAS and the macOS-plugin) just two weeks ago. It is absolutely incredible technology. >I use it with ... most of my external disks with macOS How do you personally deal with the terrible macOS default SAMBA client (if using SMB shares)? I can get saturated single-file transfers, but even deleting 100+ small files takes a longgggggg time. It is my understanding the the macOS only allows singl", "context": "Began learning ZFS two weeks ago", "use_case": "NAS and disk storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Uberblok \u2013 an interactive museum of ZFS internals"}, {"id": 803175232, "item_id": 50198452, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50198452", "by": "QuantumNomad_", "date": "2026-10-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I absolutely love ZFS. I use it on FreeBSD for all disks on the whole system", "excerpt": "I absolutely love ZFS. I use it on FreeBSD for all disks on the whole system, including the ones that FreeBSD itself is installed on, and I use it with some disks on Linux and with most of my external disks with macOS. In an alternative universe, Mac OS X would have gotten ZFS shipped with the base install back in 2007, and presumably we\u2019d then still have that to this day. In our universe that ended up not happening ", "context": "FreeBSD user", "use_case": "filesystem on FreeBSD, Linux, macOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Uberblok \u2013 an interactive museum of ZFS internals"}, {"id": 802171216, "item_id": 50135701, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50135701", "by": "jbellis", "date": "2026-10-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "fs-level compression, I use ZFS bc Btrfs has massive contention problems with concurrent Rust builds", "excerpt": "this looks like a bug, but even normal happy-path codex creates many GB of logs, openai apparently considers this fine bc it's been going on for months two things help: 1. fs-level compression, I use ZFS bc Btrfs has massive contention problems with concurrent Rust builds 2. Archive your old sessions using something like sessionwiki (https://github.com/youdie006/sessionwiki), I've integrated this into my control plan", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem compression", "switched_from": "", "story": "Codex Desktop continuously generates Crashpad pending dumps"}, {"id": 796551696, "item_id": 49784481, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49784481", "by": "burnt-resistor", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I used ZFS until it self-corrupted and refused to mount rw ever again.", "excerpt": "I used ZFS until it self-corrupted and refused to mount rw ever again. Community support was totally unhelpful and there was no resolution except buy another array and use something else. There's way too much ZFS cult fanboy glazing out there it doesn't deserve.", "context": "", "use_case": "array storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip"}, {"id": 796524816, "item_id": 49782801, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49782801", "by": "Lammy", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "ZFS will actually modify your files on disk as a side effect of a read-only operation", "excerpt": "> The rest of the upgrade came out of my junk drawers. Two DDR4 sticks from an old laptop take the memory to the platform maximum of 32 GB Realtalk: make sure you are religious about testing your RAM if you're going to run ZFS with non-ECC RAM. I'm not going to say \u201cdon't do it\u201d, but know what you're getting into and how to protect yourself from this failure mode. It's unintuitive, but ZFS will actually modify your f", "context": "ran ZFS on FreeBSD, later a dedicated ECC storage system", "use_case": "file storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Custom home server built from spare parts"}, {"id": 796500561, "item_id": 49781285, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49781285", "by": "fghorow", "date": "2026-09-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "ZFS on root available from the installer -- encrypted even if that's your jam.", "excerpt": "Check out proxmox. Debian base with Debian apt repos available for standard stuff, with ZFS built into their kernels. Easy to install. And, if you insist on running TrueNAS (or whatever) just stash it in a container or KVM box. (Edited to add: I forgot! ZFS on root available from the installer -- encrypted even if that's your jam.)", "context": "", "use_case": "root filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "Custom home server built from spare parts"}, {"id": 796426449, "item_id": 49776653, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49776653", "by": "sandreas", "date": "2026-09-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to ZFS and never Bad a Problem again.", "excerpt": "This. Btrfs blew up without ANY reason at all in my case. Rebooted and the system won't even recognize any filesystem. All btrfs tools fails to recover a single file. Here is my journey: https://forum.cgsecurity.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=39143 I switched to ZFS and never Bad a Problem again.", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem", "switched_from": "Btrfs", "story": "Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip"}, {"id": 796394512, "item_id": 49774657, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49774657", "by": "throw0101a", "date": "2026-09-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it never made it in \u2014 ZFS.", "excerpt": "> drama matters because most users don't want to have their favourite FS randomly removed from the kernel unexpectedly after some OS update :) Jokes on you then: my favourite FS can't be \"randomly removed from the kernel unexpectedly after some OS update\" because it never made it in \u2014 ZFS. :)", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip"}, {"id": 796364880, "item_id": 49772805, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49772805", "by": "lukaslalinsky", "date": "2026-09-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've been using ZFS on my Linux servers for years and have pretty good experience with it.", "excerpt": "I've been using ZFS on my Linux servers for years and have pretty good experience with it. I've not been following Linux development too much. Is bcachefs usable/stable/reliable enough to replace it?", "context": "", "use_case": "Linux server filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip"}, {"id": 796312064, "item_id": 49769504, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49769504", "by": "sippingabonedry", "date": "2026-09-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm saying ZFS on another OS.", "excerpt": "So two filesystems that are essentially shunned from the Linux kernel and permanent second-class citizens, and one that was removed from Red Hat and has a questionable history of reliability. Oh boy which do I choose? I'm saying ZFS on another OS.", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "Btrfs/ZFS/bcachefs under workloads classic benchmarks skip"}, {"id": 795808928, "item_id": 49738058, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49738058", "by": "Helmut10001", "date": "2026-09-17", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use zfs sync snapshots in raw mode (-R)", "excerpt": "Exactly! My offsite Backup box boots using a Shelly Plug S set on timer; it doesn't need to unlock the enrypted ZFS datasets because I use zfs sync snapshots in raw mode (-R). After the zfs scrupt, the box sends an email to me and shuts down. Next week: Repeat.", "context": "runs an offsite backup box", "use_case": "encrypted offsite backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backups Aren't Simple"}, {"id": 795790608, "item_id": 49736913, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49736913", "by": "Gud", "date": "2026-09-17", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use ZFS and do off site backups using rsync.net.", "excerpt": "I use ZFS and do off site backups using rsync.net.", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backups Aren't Simple"}, {"id": 795468609, "item_id": 49716788, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49716788", "by": "sellmesoap", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I once had a ZFS get to a state where it would crash the kernel on mount", "excerpt": "I never dug into the failure, but I once had a ZFS get to a state where it would crash the kernel on mount, I was able to mount it with checks turned off an recover what was important, but it was a spooky experience. I live on the bleeding edge of file systems for my desktop, I was on reiser4 back when that was fresh, I daily drive bcachefs (it's been great!) Mostly I've been lucky, I don't usually keep an openbsd sy", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "GEFS on OpenBSD: A Early Preview"}, {"id": 793626336, "item_id": 49601646, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49601646", "by": "igoose1", "date": "2026-09-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "ZFS successfully and transparently recompressed everything on the fly.", "excerpt": "I have an anecdote about compressed data. When I studied at school, I used ZFS with lz4 enabled on my working machine. During that times I had a task of parsing Wikipedia's data. I had enough brain cells to find compressed dumps and download them with aria2 but not enough to leave the file compressed. I ran a decompressor. It'd been taking longer than I expected so I went out to walk a dog. Imagine how fast me and th", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem with compression", "switched_from": "", "story": "bzip3"}, {"id": 793304432, "item_id": 49581527, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49581527", "by": "aborsy", "date": "2026-09-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The best backup solution that I found is ZFS send", "excerpt": "The best backup solution that I found is ZFS send (even if it\u2019s not strictly a back up tool). ZFS send raw encrypted stream from laptop to a server automatically. Encrypted compressed incremental. No need to verify: if snapshot exists at destination, there is no error. If a problem is encountered, restore from redundancy. Errors can be detected and corrected. Restic has also been working great. The problem is that, i", "context": "", "use_case": "encrypted incremental backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Creating backup storage sucks"}, {"id": 791943776, "item_id": 49496486, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49496486", "by": "ssl-3", "date": "2026-08-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's a lovely filesystem", "excerpt": "That's a great test environment and it really helps drive away some of the misconceptions about ZFS. It's a lovely filesystem and it can work in very stodgy ways with zetabytes on Serious Hardware, but it can also work with relatively small devices on silly hardware. Another example: I've got a ZFS scratch disk that has seen dozens of terabytes written. It's an old ~120GB Intel-branded SATA SSD that is connected with", "context": "Runs ZFS on a USB-attached SSD for years", "use_case": "scratch disk on USB SSD", "switched_from": "", "story": "FreeCORE TrueNAS Core \u2013 Continued"}, {"id": 791091665, "item_id": 49443229, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49443229", "by": "EGreg", "date": "2026-08-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I highly recommend putting ZFS underneath, to help with deduplication.", "excerpt": "Thanks, that's a great list! Might be worth mentioning our engine there too, for people who want a graph database atop SQLite and other battle-tested relational databases like MySQL, MariaDB, Postgres. My team and I built it over the years, and it's open source (AGPL). Here is how it works: https://community.qbix.com/t/qbix-streams-as-a-graph-database/769 Our database abstraction layer (and optional ORM) has been bat", "context": "", "use_case": "deduplication and encryption at rest", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: LatticeDB \u2013 Like SQLite but for graph databases"}, {"id": 790640081, "item_id": 49415005, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49415005", "by": "pkghost", "date": "2026-08-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I may actually hold on to ZFS datasets with mounting magic.", "excerpt": "Having gone down the worktree rabbit hole for a month or so, I am giving up in favor of multiple checkouts to enable many agents to work across many repos. Worktrees worked great for me when my agents' work was mostly contained to a single repo (they got me to finally hitting rate limits, not that that was a goal). As my homelab scales, agents increasingly work across multiple repos, and that's where (my approach to)", "context": "homelab with many repos", "use_case": "per-agent dataset clones", "switched_from": "", "story": "Parallel development without the headaches using Git worktree"}, {"id": 790158961, "item_id": 49384935, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49384935", "by": "shepherdjerred", "date": "2026-08-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I\u2019ve found ZFS much more stable", "excerpt": "btrfs is stable?? I used it a couple of years ago and really didn\u2019t have a positive experience. I\u2019ve found ZFS much more stable", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem", "switched_from": "Btrfs", "story": "Linux 7.2 Released"}, {"id": 789285665, "item_id": 49330354, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49330354", "by": "barrkel", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I have zfs snapshots and cloud backups should I want to revert", "excerpt": "I don't care. 99% of my uses of an image editor are for ad hoc edits. I never want to clutter my disk with project files on the off-chance I want to preserve layers or whatnot. I have zfs snapshots and cloud backups should I want to revert but the odds I want to revert an ad hoc image edit are approximately nil - I can never recall needing to do so. I don't use Gimp as a 3D modeling software or a digital audio workst", "context": "", "use_case": "snapshots and backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "GIMP Development Update"}, {"id": 786703425, "item_id": 49168964, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49168964", "by": "hylaride", "date": "2026-08-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "our workloads benefited from the trinity of Solaris' threading, ZFS tiered storage, and zones/containers", "excerpt": "At a previous job circa 2008-12, we were a sun shop and moved from spark to x86 Solaris. It screamed at sustained, high-concurrency loads and our workloads benefited from the trinity of Solaris' threading, ZFS tiered storage, and zones/containers. By the time the Intel Nehalem chips became available to use, our DB loads screamed, too. There were edge cases where the sparc chips were better, but not at the price point", "context": "worked at a Sun shop circa 2008-12", "use_case": "tiered storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows XP 2002 for the Itanium: Unbridled rage"}, {"id": 786111217, "item_id": 49131951, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49131951", "by": "permalac", "date": "2026-08-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Debian zfs connected to 8 of the disks", "excerpt": "I bought a plastic tower for disks which let's me have 10 disks with some space between them. I then bought some Artic fans and attached them with tape to the 'tower'. Then I used a 11 years old optiplex 990 as Debian zfs connected to 8 of the disks, and I have 2 spares which I'll be able to use when the others die. Performance is great. I could do it because I was given those disks for free, with plenty of ours on e", "context": "built DIY NAS", "use_case": "NAS storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ten Ways NAS Is Getting Enshitified"}, {"id": 785197840, "item_id": 49074865, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49074865", "by": "secabeen", "date": "2026-07-27", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "the only place I use SLOG is with Optane devices in front of SATA/SAS flash.", "excerpt": "Yeah, the only place I use SLOG is with Optane devices in front of SATA/SAS flash. Anything that needs the speed of SLOG shouldn't be on rust anyways. I would be in a different world if my system was backing banking or other loss critical data. For all my workloads, losing 5 seconds of writes in a crash is NBD.", "context": "", "use_case": "storage with SLOG", "switched_from": "", "story": "If Scrubs Hurt, Your ZFS Design Is Broken"}, {"id": 782837456, "item_id": 48927341, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48927341", "by": "einsteinx2", "date": "2026-07-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "ZFS works fine on root on Linux. I use it on multiple machines.", "excerpt": "> As enshittification encroaches onto Linux This is a ridiculous stretch of the term > With ZFS on root in FreeBSD it's a no-brainer. ZFS works fine on root on Linux. I use it on multiple machines. > Linux is feeling more and more like a bunch of random tools thrown together as opposed to a complete OS designed to work as a whole. This has quite literally always been the case and seems intentional. Linux is the kerne", "context": "", "use_case": "root filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "FreeBSD 16 Retires the Last of Its GPL Code from Its Base System"}, {"id": 781272609, "item_id": 48829538, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48829538", "by": "igoose1", "date": "2026-07-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have autosnapshots enabled, and I tune compression methods on specific datasets", "excerpt": "10 months ago I've built a Raspberry Pi 5 mini NAS with 3 SSDs connected through RADXA Penta Hat. It runs OpenMediaVault, system is on the SDcard, other data are on the SSD ZFS pool. I have autosnapshots enabled, and I tune compression methods on specific datasets (lz4 for almost everything, zstd for file backups). We use it for storing (backups, media files), playing (PaperMC), and watching (Jellyfin). I can only co", "context": "Built a Raspberry Pi 5 NAS", "use_case": "NAS storage pool", "switched_from": "", "story": "How to Build a Minimal ZFS NAS Without Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS"}, {"id": 781270112, "item_id": 48829382, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48829382", "by": "KaiserPro", "date": "2026-07-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "zfs is a night and day compared to LVM/mdadm", "excerpt": "> in the past for ext4 over lvm I used to look after storage arrays for VFX places. everytime I saw lvm I inwardly sighed. The docs were terrible, almost as bad as MDADM. snapshots were for a long time unrecoverable. You'd then have to work out what pattern of LV you had, was it a suprise raid0? or a misaligned raid1? zfs is a night and day compared to LVM/mdadm, two tools, rich help, the man pages are reasonably goo", "context": "looked after storage arrays for VFX places", "use_case": "storage arrays", "switched_from": "", "story": "How to Build a Minimal ZFS NAS Without Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS"}, {"id": 781242082, "item_id": 48827630, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48827630", "by": "Confiks", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I noticed that there are a lot of ZFS myths and cargo culting.", "excerpt": "Not a great time price-wise to be building a NAS, but I have been doing so for the last past weeks. Inside a Jonsbo N6 case, which is pretty nice with an 8x SATA backplane and drive bays (unlike the earlier Jonsbo variants). I ended up on shucking 4x the 14 TB WD Elements Desktop. They contain helium drives, the WD140EDGZ in my case, and are about 25% cheaper than 4x the 12 TB WD Red Plus drives (which are air-filled", "context": "building a ZFS NAS", "use_case": "NAS filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "How to Build a Minimal ZFS NAS Without Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS"}, {"id": 777420016, "item_id": 48588751, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48588751", "by": "hpb42", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "What made me decide to use ZFS instead is that Btrfs does not have [yet] transparent encryption", "excerpt": "I use ZFS on my laptops and desktop but kind of considered Btrfs for this new NAS. What made me decide to use ZFS instead is that Btrfs does not have [yet] transparent encryption, I'd need to use dm-crypt/LUKS. ZFS has that natively, so :shrug: When transparent encryption lands on Btrfs, I may consider it for new machines (or Bcachefs if it gets back in the Linux Kernel).", "context": "uses ZFS on laptops, desktop and NAS", "use_case": "NAS filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "Benchmarking OpenZFS vs. EXT4 for My NAS"}, {"id": 777398065, "item_id": 48587379, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48587379", "by": "paffdragon", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm setting up a FreeBSD server where ZFS was the natural choice, again snapshots, boot environments, native encryption and just maturity/reliability.", "excerpt": "I didn't see in the post, but have you considered also Btrfs if you are on Linux? Currently, I use Btrfs on Synology, mainly because snapshots and checksums are nice, but I never really did the work to do benchmarks against other FS. In the past my choice was Ext4 or XFS with LUKS/LVM, then Btrfs matured and since then I moved to it. So far I had no issues, but YMMV, some people consider it still not entirely reliabl", "context": "", "use_case": "FreeBSD server filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "Benchmarking OpenZFS vs. EXT4 for My NAS"}, {"id": 764153729, "item_id": 47759608, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47759608", "by": "JCattheATM", "date": "2026-04-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "it has native support and ZBM is available in the community repo", "excerpt": "This seems interesting, but I've been using Alpine as a desktop distro wth ZFS for years now, it has native support and ZBM is available in the community repo. Not sure what advantages Chimera would add.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "Just Enough Chimera Linux"}, {"id": 763270705, "item_id": 47704419, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47704419", "by": "wolvoleo", "date": "2026-04-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The good thing is having ZFS snapshots as a safety net though.", "excerpt": "Interesting. I use FreeBSD on my desktop too but it's really a desktop so I don't have to bother with WiFi or bluetooth. I generally dislike laptops for ergonomic reasons, and I never bring my computers anywhere anyway so I just buy NUCs. Not having to buy for a display, keyboard, trackpad, battery helps keep the price down. I like it for several reasons. It's a holistic system which means it's much easier to underst", "context": "", "use_case": "snapshots", "switched_from": "", "story": "FreeBSD Laptop Compatibility: Top Laptops to Use with FreeBSD"}, {"id": 758662547, "item_id": 47416409, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47416409", "by": "torginus", "date": "2026-03-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "There's Docker, OverlayFS, FUSE, ZFS or Btrfs snapshots?", "excerpt": "Why do people keep reinventing OS features? There's Docker, OverlayFS, FUSE, ZFS or Btrfs snapshots? Do you not trust your OS to do this correctly, or do you think you can do better? A lot of this stuff existed 5, 10, 15 years ago... Somehow there's been a trend for every effing program to grow and absorb the features and responsibilities of every other program. Actually, I have a brilliant idea, what if we used node", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem snapshots", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why Node.js needs a virtual file system"}, {"id": 756870994, "item_id": 47304437, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47304437", "by": "jmspring", "date": "2026-03-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "porting NanoClaw to use FreeBSD jails and ZFS snapshots", "excerpt": "It's still early, because I actually had some nice weather in the PNW, but looking at porting NanoClaw to use FreeBSD jails and ZFS snapshots. Why? I use linux because I have to - docker/docker images is what we are stuck with. For personal stuff - I prefer the BSDs.", "context": "", "use_case": "snapshots", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (March 2026)"}, {"id": 756790023, "item_id": 47299376, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47299376", "by": "acidburnNSA", "date": "2026-03-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "ZFS mirroring for NAS", "excerpt": "I have something like this, in the same case. I have beefier specs b/c I use it as a daily workstation in addition to running all my stuff. * nginx with letsencrypt wildcard so I have lots of subdomains * No tailscale, just pure wireguard between a few family houses and for remote access * Jellyfin for movies and TV, serving to my Samsung TV via the Tizen jellyfin app * Mopidy holding my music collection, serving to ", "context": "homelab owner", "use_case": "NAS storage mirroring", "switched_from": "", "story": "My Homelab Setup"}, {"id": 751476019, "item_id": 46967251, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46967251", "by": "TacticalCoder", "date": "2026-02-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "for Proxmox/VMs/Docker/ZFS, etc.", "excerpt": "Like many here I also run a few things at home and I've got a variety of machine: a good old Pi as an unbound DNS server that is on 24/7, A N100 modern NUC, running headless, to stream movies/music (wife or kid or I turn it on when needed), a good old rock stable solid HP Z440 workstation which I use as a server (ECC RAM and 14 cores, yummy) for Proxmox/VMs/Docker/ZFS, etc. The workstation which I use as a server is ", "context": "runs a home lab", "use_case": "home server storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Switch to Linux and the Beginning of My Self-Hosting Journey"}, {"id": 748407090, "item_id": 46775443, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46775443", "by": "anon291", "date": "2026-01-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I just revert to an old zfs snapshot", "excerpt": "Why is windows so hard? In my many years of Linux, I've never managed to brick a computer. Microsoft makes computers hard for no reason. At worst, in the olden days I used to just boot into a livecd and fix my issue, including using an old kernel. Today, I just revert to an old zfs snapshot or if something is truly awful just pull my archived zfs snapshot. I mean obviously windows can be reinstalled and restored, but", "context": "long-time Linux user", "use_case": "snapshot rollback", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows 11's Patch Tuesday nightmare gets worse"}, {"id": 746338128, "item_id": 46646133, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46646133", "by": "KaiserPro", "date": "2026-01-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "JBOD that badboy into ZFS and you'll have something fast enough for most things (streaming)", "excerpt": "I dunno what the budget is, I've not had time to watch it all. however getting a second hand dell md3060 (they are rebadged from an OEM) for about \u00a31k is also a good option. Its 60drives and mostly bulletproof. Downside is that you'll either need SAS controller on your server, or find the vanishingly rare Sata controllers. JBOD that badboy into ZFS and you'll have something fast enough for most things (streaming) How", "context": "", "use_case": "large storage array", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Built a 1 Petabyte Server from Scratch [video]"}, {"id": 743570388, "item_id": 46473149, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46473149", "by": "sandreas", "date": "2026-01-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched to ZFS with ZFSBootMenu[2] and never looked back.", "excerpt": "Long time Linux Desktop user here. I really think Linux is a great choice as a Desktop in days of liquid glass and webviews. There are a lot of choices to make, but in the end it is working out really well (at least for me). KDE and the new COSMIC desktop environment with tiling support are tempting, but for now I keep using GNOME until I have more time to check them out. The things I personally had problems with is ", "context": "Long time Linux Desktop user", "use_case": "filesystem", "switched_from": "Btrfs", "story": "2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop"}, {"id": 737645538, "item_id": 46102846, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46102846", "by": "QuiEgo", "date": "2025-11-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I also use a ZFS mirrored pool on SSDs for \u201chot\u201d files", "excerpt": "I use mergerfs + snapraid on my HDDs for \u201ccold\u201d storage for the same reason: noise. Snapraid sync and scrub runs at 4am when I am not in the same room as the NAS. The drives stay spun down 99% of the time, because I also use a ZFS mirrored pool on SSDs for \u201chot\u201d files, although Btrfs could also work if you're opposed to ZFS because it's out of tree. Basically using this idea, but with straight Debian instead of ProxM", "context": "home NAS user", "use_case": "hot file storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Don't throw away your old PC\u2013it makes a better NAS than anything you can buy"}, {"id": 737581794, "item_id": 46098862, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46098862", "by": "jcalvinowens", "date": "2025-11-30", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Don't use ZFS on Linux. If you really want ZFS, run FreeBSD.", "excerpt": "I've been running homebuilt NAS for a decade. My advice is going to irritate the purists: * Don't use raid5. Use btrfs-raid1 or use mdraid10 with >=2 far-copies. * Don't use raid6. Use btrfs-raid1c3 or use mdraid10 with >=3 far-copies. * Don't use ZFS on Linux. If you really want ZFS, run FreeBSD. The multiple copy formats outperform the parity formats on reads by a healthy margin, both in btrfs and in mdraid. They'r", "context": "runs homebuilt NAS for a decade", "use_case": "NAS filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "Don't throw away your old PC\u2013it makes a better NAS than anything you can buy"}, {"id": 736735424, "item_id": 46045964, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46045964", "by": "chungy", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use ZFS on both my desktop and laptop each with Linux", "excerpt": "I use ZFS on both my desktop and laptop each with Linux (in addition to a server, also running ZFS, but on FreeBSD). It's actually really not terribly hard, but I might be biased since I've been doing since it 2011 :) If you can/are willing to use UEFI, ZFSBootMenu is a Linux oriented solution that replicates the power of FreeBSD's bootloader, so you can manage snapshots and boot environments and rollback checkpoints", "context": "", "use_case": "filesystem on desktop, laptop, server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Unpowered SSDs slowly lose data"}, {"id": 736706545, "item_id": 46044159, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46044159", "by": "lloeki", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "warn", "quote": "the zfs module situation: when I tried it, the module silently failed to build properly and this resulted in a broken system", "excerpt": "Even the much-maligned raid5/6 is basically fine\u2020. If you're concerned about the write hole, use -m DUP/raid1/raid1c2 instead of -m raid5. Plus raid-stripe-tree\u2020\u2020 is coming - didn't check the status of it recently. Many horror stories are because, while btrfs is fine, the operational model and tooling have some footguns which can cause either straight up data loss (due to operator error, but arguably that's really du", "context": "", "use_case": "data array filesystem", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why I (Still) Love Linux ?"}]}