JONATHAN SCHWARTZ, pony-tailed and baby-faced CEO of Sun, has let slip that the new version of Mac OS X will run the ZFS file system by default.
This confirms an earlier rumour, circulating around the Open Slowaris messageboard, and means that Apple will be ditching the HFS+ system that has stood it in good stead since 1998, with barely an update for Journaling in 2002. The latest beta of Leopard, OS version 10.5, includes support for ZFS but has some kinks to be worked through. If all goes well, however, new Mac owners will pick up a ZFS system when Leopard debuts in October.
ZFS is designed to be a file system that goes to the limits of physical computing. It's 128-bit, and actually running out of room in the file system would require more physical storage space than currently exists on earth, according to engineers at Sun.
The approach taken to the new system by Apple is in marked comparison to Microsoft's attempts at introducing WinFS in Windows Vista. Microsoft spent so long trying to re-invent the wheel, with some extra SQL lubricant, that the whole project was de-railed and eventually dumped.
In comparison, Apple has simply taken the best module it could fine for managing drives and plugged it in - the advantage, we suppose, of running a BSD back-end. As NTFS starts to creak under the weight of consumer media consumption, and Apple sets its stall out on exactly those terms, ZFS could be a crucial, if rather boring tool in the ongoing OS wars.
We'll see in October
By Wily Ferret: