Post #2382399

2026-05-06 15:57 UTC

@djfiander@code4lib.social @mwl@io.mwl.io @b0rk@social.jvns.ca if you actually do a zine about ZFS please make sure to mention that it doesn't have a real fsck, and yes, this can and *has* caused data loss in production. to me. personally. not that i'm bitter. not that this wouldn't be an unforgivable act of hubris by the zfs developers even if it had never caused anyone any data loss even in testing, either.

Replies (2)

@grumpybozo@toad.social 2026-05-06 20:54

@zwol@masto.hackers.town @djfiander@code4lib.social @mwl@io.mwl.io @b0rk@social.jvns.ca Add one to the count of people who’ve lost data due to a ZFS error, but I’m not sure that it was the lack of fsck to blame. As I understand it, ZFS lacks the metadata redundancy it would need to figure out how to fsck the problems that can happen. OTOH, it as been a very long time since ZFS lost data on me. 18 years at least, since it was on an early version of Solaris 10. Sun originally claimed that the only way for ZFS to lose data was simultaneous disk failures.

Open ##2382400
@feld@friedcheese.us 2026-05-06 21:23

@zwol@masto.hackers.town @djfiander@code4lib.social @mwl@io.mwl.io @b0rk@social.jvns.ca ZFS has scrub and zdb, two tools that are far more powerful than any fsck that has ever existed

Open ##2382415