I'm currently migrating from VMware to Proxmox, and there's been a lot of talk about switching from our hardware RAID setup to using ZFS instead. People seem to unanimously rave about ZFS as being the best option for servers, especially if you're not running ESXi. I'm curious to know if this consensus is accurate. I've heard some potential downsides, like a slight increase in CPU and RAM usage, which I'm okay with. But I want your thoughts—should we really consider making the switch to ZFS?
5 Answers
I've been running Proxmox with ZFS in a clustered environment for years, and I have no complaints. It's stable and has served us well without any regrets.
I didn't expect to love ZFS as much as I do! It's amazing for smaller setups like my homelab, but I can't speak to its performance at a larger scale. The tooling and features make it a pleasure to work with.
While ZFS is great, it's not a one-size-fits-all solution. I've been using it for decades, but it's not always better than hardware RAID, especially for VMs. If you already have a RAID setup that works, there's no need to switch unless you're building something new from scratch.
ZFS is fantastic if you have enough CPU and RAM to support it. However, it’s not ideal for lightweight setups if speed is a priority. For heavy workloads, especially on VMs, you'll need to consider specific configurations to avoid performance bottlenecks.
There are some performance concerns with ZFS. It was designed for traditional spinning disks, and while it's getting better with SSDs, it still lags behind filesystems like XFS or EXT4 when it comes to raw speed. You need to properly tune it based on your workload, like adjusting the record size, compression, and other settings, or you might run into unexpected performance issues.
Related Questions
Can't Load PhpMyadmin On After Server Update
Redirect www to non-www in Apache Conf
How To Check If Your SSL Cert Is SHA 1
Windows TrackPad Gestures