[LAU] ZFS?

[Joe Hartley]

On Thu, 10 May 2018 09:12:44 -0400
Peter Lutek <peter at peterlutek.com> wrote:

> greetings, all!
> 
> wondering if anyone has experience using a ZFS raidZ2 disk pool for 
> audio. i'm talking about a LOCAL pool, running on ZOL 
> (http://zfsonlinux.org/) -- NOT a LAN-connected dedicated server.

Hi, Peter.  I have not used a ZFS pool for audio work, but I used to
work in the ZFS group at Oracle.  RAIDZ2 optimizes your available space 
at the price of performance.  If I was going to record multiple tracks in 
a DAW to a ZFS pool, I'd be using a mirrored pool.

The ZFS RAID levels are designed to spread the load around, and bog down
with a small number of drives.  Given that this is a local pool we're talking
about, we're likely talking about 4 or 5 drives in the pool at best.  You
might be OK given that the pool is dedicated to the machine, but I'd test it
thoroughly.  I'd avoid RAIDZ1 - there's insufficient redundancy and has led to occasional data loss.

Depending on the devices, you might be OK - a pool of SSDs will be better
than a pool of spinning drives, for example.  If you only ever record a max
of 2 tracks at a time, you'll also likely be fine.

This is based on my experiences with big loads on a ZFS storage appliance;
you may have a very different experience with the local pool under Linux.

Good luck!

-- 
======================================================================
       Joe Hartley - UNIX/network Consultant - jh at brainiac.com
 Without deviation from the norm, "progress" is not possible. - FZappa