# I want to implement compression like Windows NTFS has



## IT_Architect (Apr 7, 2014)

I have a couple of 2003 Server VMs that are currently NFS targets for backing up VMs.  I want to replace them with a couple of FreeBSD VMs.  I want to have the same on-the-fly file compression that NTFS has, but I don't want to use ZFS.  Is there a solid way to do that with FreeBSD?


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## wblock@ (Apr 7, 2014)

Why avoid ZFS?


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## IT_Architect (Apr 7, 2014)

> Why avoid ZFS?


Overhead, resources, performance, complexity, reliability, and it brings little that the virtual environment doesn't already provide.  The only piece I would benefit from would be compression, and I see mixed reviews on its performance in that regard.

Thanks!


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## vermaden (Apr 8, 2014)

IT_Architect said:
			
		

> > Why avoid ZFS?
> 
> 
> Overhead, resources


Yes, it comes at a price.



			
				IT_Architect said:
			
		

> performance


Single disk or many disks?



			
				IT_Architect said:
			
		

> complexity


You mean features?



			
				IT_Architect said:
			
		

> reliability


Reliability is better with ZFS then with UFS as ZFS does keep and check ckechsums for every block it stores ... unless You disable it.



			
				IT_Architect said:
			
		

> and it brings little that the virtual environment doesn't already provide


... like the ability to create _Thin Provion_ block devices for iSCSI or/and compression for these devices ... or creating clones of snapshots for these block devices? Which of the above is abailable on UFS? None.



			
				IT_Architect said:
			
		

> The only piece I would benefit from would be compression, and I see mixed reviews on its performance in that regard.



Check LZ4 compression reviews then, its VERY fast and if it detects that compression ratio is less then 12%, then it does not use compression for these blocks 'on th fly'.

... and last bot not least, have You heard about _ZFS Boot Environments_ with sysutils/beadm?


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## usdmatt (Apr 8, 2014)

Performance in regard to compression is actually extremely good on ZFS. It's performance in other areas where it has problems, especially when it comes to NFS. I can appreciate not wanting to use it in this case. You do have to take a hit in performance if you want to run VMs over NFS, however I've used ZFS enough to realise that I'm willing to put up with this in order to get its other features (and you can alleviate it a bit using decent SSDs).

I'm not aware of any way of doing compression on any other FreeBSD file system (read UFS). You'd want a compression GEOM module, which would be a very interesting addition to the GEOM stack, but I'm not aware of it existing anywhere.


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