ZFS What are the differences between Native ZFS and OpenZFS?

D

dr_grid

I wonder what the differences are between the FreeBSD native ZFS and OpenZFS? I am currently running FBSD 14.4,
and zfs version reports:
Code: 
zfs-2.2.9-FreeBSD_g079ba86d7
zfs-kmod-2.2.9-FreeBSD_g079ba86d7

My first ZFS pool was created in January 2016, likely running FBSD 10.1 at the time. It was just for experimentation. I
began serious use of ZFS in August 2023, with a raidz2 pool.

Are there any advantages to changing to OpenZFS? How difficult is it to move datasets from native ZFS to OpenZFS? Or should I just
keep what I have?
 
Thanks for the answer. I wonder if they could make it more confusing? If I pkg search openzfs,
it reports openzfs-2.4.1.1, which would seem to be more current than my version of zfs.

Again, thanks. Sounds like no difference at all.
 
dr_grid said:
Sounds like no difference at all.
Click to expand...
No. The (Open)ZFS you have been using is part of the FreeBSD base install; it is part of the official FreeBSD version it comes with. As such, it is "officially sanctioned as part of supported release versions" it belongs to. The OpenZFS you'll find in the ports tree (filesystems/openzfs in combination with filesystems/openzfs-kmod ) can vary somewhat over time, and it is not part of official FreeBSD release versions. AFAIK, it used to be labelled a developer version; maybe that has shifted somewhat over time. As far as I'm aware it is mostly used as a version for users/developers (running -CURRENT) testing (features of) future versions of OpenZFS that have been released by the OpenZFS initiave, that has their own release process and time table.

As a user, "just using" ZFS as a means to reliably store your data and not being either a somewhat advanced ZFS user or, aspiring to be one, I should advise to not just see the incorporated ZFS and the ZFS from the ports tree as interchangeable. For example, a somewhat notorious problem that creeps up is the zpool-upgrade(8) command that can have serious uninted consequences if you (must) try to access your ZFS storage that has its ZFS pool updated to a new version incompatible with the ZFS version you want to return to.

Unless you want to test use a (possible) next upcoming version of OpenZFS and take all necessary precautions or use it as a separate test system, and not as your "personal production data storage", I suggest you use the incorporated ZFS version that comes pre-integrated with the FreeBSD base-install.

here you can find some background info I wrote some time ago about the formation of the OpenZFS initiative and how OpenZFS development is structured upstream.
 
dr_grid said:
Thanks for the answer. I wonder if they could make it more confusing? If I pkg search openzfs,
it reports openzfs-2.4.1.1, which would seem to be more current than my version of zfs.

Again, thanks. Sounds like no difference at all.
Click to expand...
This is because the openzfs branch that was applied to 14 when 14 was still 14-CURRENT is the one that is still tracked by FreeBSD-14. Similarly, the openzfs branch that was current at the time 15 was 15-CURRENT is the branch that FreeBSD-15 will receive patches from. 16-CURRENT receives patches from the openzfs mainline trunk.
 
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