ZFS should have been great, but I kind of hate it: ZFS seems to be trapped in the past, before it was sidelined it as the cool storage project of choice; it's inflexible; it lacks modern flash integration; and it's not directly supported by most operating systems. But I put all my valuable data on ZFS because it simply offers the best level of data protection in a small … [Read more...] about ZFS Is the Best Filesystem (For Now…)
Solaris
Reminiscing About the Cubix ERS, My First Bladed Server System
In January, I made one of my semi annual pilgrimages to WeirdStuff, the amazing computer salvage store in Sunnyvale California. While prowling the back halls, between a smoke testing apparatus and a broken plotter, I spotted a Cubix ERS chassis. This brought back a flood of memories, since I purchased just such a device early in my career. This proto-blade server system was a … [Read more...] about Reminiscing About the Cubix ERS, My First Bladed Server System
Sun’s Excellent VirtualBox Goes 2.0
Today, Sun released VirtualBox 2.0, a major revision to the (partially open source) desktop virtualization software. I have long used VirtualBox on my Windows machines as my virtualization product of choice due to its compactness, functionality, and low impact on the host system. Although I'm happy with VMware Fusion on the Mac, I intend to try out VirtualBox there, too, to see … [Read more...] about Sun’s Excellent VirtualBox Goes 2.0