# ZFS file system



## fernandel (Oct 23, 2016)

Hi!

I did talk with friend who use FreeBSD on desktop computer and he has ZFS file system and as he explain it works very good special when compailling ports. I like to try and my question is if will works if I installed FreeBSD from scratch and after that install all ports which I have built with Synth? I have a desktop computer too with 8 GB of RAM.
Thank you.

Fernandel


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## getopt (Oct 23, 2016)

Desktop or not desktop does not matter for ZFS, it just works fine. 4 GB RAM should be sufficient if you are not eating it otherwise.

Depending on your privacy needs remember that ZFS is a copy-on-write filesystem, thus secure deletion (wiping files) does not really work on ZFS, as active data are never overwritten by ZFS. 

Therefore if enhanced privacy needs are of concern think of possible leftovers that may remain on the disk. Even ZFS on top of GELI does not solve this problem as it protects only file systems that are not attached. Also encrypted datasets still did not make it into FreeBSD's ZFS version.

So keep in mind, ZFS pools are a site of discovery for forensic experts.


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## wblock@ (Oct 23, 2016)

How does ZFS have anything to do with ports?  It's a filesystem.  So is UFS.  Both are just a way to store files.  Ports built into packages on one will install on the other, assuming the version of the operating system is the same on both.


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## chrbr (Oct 26, 2016)

Dear fernandel,
in the FreeBSD-qustions list there has been a message with the following statement:

```
I've just tried a dump | restore from UFS into a ZFS target, it worked fine.
```
The thread is "ufs to zfs" and has been started Obtober, 23rd. If this is correct a fresh installation to migrate to ZFS might be not required.


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## kpa (Oct 26, 2016)

chrbr said:


> Dear fernandel,
> in the FreeBSD-qustions list there has been a message with the following statement:
> 
> ```
> ...



This works because restore(8) does not need special access to the filesystem like dump(8) does. All restore(8) does is recreate the directory hierarchy and the files contained in the dump using standard UNIX system calls that work just the same if the filesystem is ZFS.


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