ZFS Do I need ZFS for personal laptop?

Regarding ZFS, I am not sure if I need it. It sounds good, but for personal use on a laptop is it needed? I am not sure if I should try to use it now, or first install the basic system with automatic formatting. I am sure I will have to re-install my system at some point soon, so perhaps I should hold off on adding more complexity right now.

Is it much more complex to set up ZFS? I have an SSD and internal HDD. I plan to do backups of the HDD where I will store my files.
I am using ZFS on laptop and recommend strongly.

Works very well and gives some extra benefits. For example, when I needed to replace the HDD on laptop, simply connected a new and bigger drive over USB adapter, partitioned and mirrored that. Later removed the original and replaced with that disk. With this simple procedure I had replaced my laptop HDD with bigger one.

Snapshots and bectl give some extra security...

The basic use and installation is not complicated. Extra features make it even more usable.
 
I am using ZFS on laptop and recommend strongly.

Works very well and gives some extra benefits. For example, when I needed to replace the HDD on laptop, simply connected a new and bigger drive over USB adapter, partitioned and mirrored that. Later removed the original and replaced with that disk. With this simple procedure I had replaced my laptop HDD with bigger one.

Snapshots and bectl give some extra security...

The basic use and installation is not complicated. Extra features make it even more usable.
I currently have FreeBSD (GhostBSD) installed on the m.2 ssd. I plan to buy a 1TB SATA to replace the HDD. Would I be able to do the process you show above to replace the m.2 with the bigger 1TB SATA?
 
I currently have FreeBSD (GhostBSD) installed on the m.2 ssd. I plan to buy a 1TB SATA to replace the HDD. Would I be able to do the process you show above to replace the m.2 with the bigger 1TB SATA?
Yes. You have two options to replicate ZFS file system. The 'standard' procedure is to to create a new pool on a new device, create recursive snapshot and use zfs send like this:
https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/...system-to-a-different-zpool.78031/post-486801
The other option is to partition a new drive, add new partition as a mirror device. Let it resilver and remove the original. Do not forget to create a boot partition on a new drive.
 
I am thinking it might be a good idea to use my old laptop as a backup device. I can use Unison to sync my daily driver with the backup laptop. The backup laptop has a 1TB hard drive.

Would it make sense to attach an external 1TB hard drive and set up a RAID? Would that be possible?

Or would it be better to just have Unison sync directly with both the internal hard drive and the external hard drive on the old laptop? I assume either way would give me two backups of my daily driver.
 
I am thinking it might be a good idea to use my old laptop as a backup device. I can use Unison to sync my daily driver with the backup laptop. The backup laptop has a 1TB hard drive.

Would it make sense to attach an external 1TB hard drive and set up a RAID? Would that be possible?

Or would it be better to just have Unison sync directly with both the internal hard drive and the external hard drive on the old laptop? I assume either way would give me two backups of my daily driver.
With ZFS, you can easily mirror internal drive with external HDD. Mirroring and backup are not exactly the same thing, but both contribute to the security of your data. Mirroring protects mainly against drive failure, backup against other disasters. If your data is important, I would suggest to use both methods. In addition to that, with ZFS you can make snapshots, which give also some extra security.
 
Back
Top