I love ZFS!

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As mentioned earlier, I’ve been using the ZFS file system on my network backup drive for the last couple weeks. Last night, I decided to run a “scrub” operation on it (a file-check, similar to fsck or chkdsk):

   $ sudo zpool status  
     pool: zfs  
    state: ONLINE  
   status: One or more devices has experienced an unrecoverable error.  An  
           attempt was made to correct the error.  Applications are unaffected.  
   action: Determine if the device needs to be replaced, and clear the errors  
           using 'zpool clear' or replace the device with 'zpool replace'.  
      see: http://www.sun.com/msg/ZFS-8000-9P  
    scrub: scrub in progress, 75.87% done, 1h9m to go  
   config:  

    NAME        STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
    zfs         ONLINE       0     0     0
      mirror    ONLINE       0     0     0
        loop0   ONLINE       0     0     4
        loop1   ONLINE       0     0     1

   errors: No known data errors

Five problems so far, which might seem horrible for only two weeks of use — until you think about it. That’s five problems on an encrypted network drive, using a chain of programs that are only mostly reliable on a local drive. I don’t know what kind of reliability people expect from network drives (this is my first), but in my very limited experience, that’s not too unusual.

My point is that ZFS not only detected the problems (where other file systems would happily have assumed that all is well, and either served up the erroneous files, or failed spectacularly if the damage was in a metadata block), it fixed them! If it had run into them during normal use, it would have fixed them silently too, only noting the problems in the log so that you could tell that something was going on!

That’s why I started using ZFS on that drive in the first place. Nice to see it in action. 🙂

“AMAZINGLY SIMPLE HOME REMEDIES”

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Courtesy of my sister, whose sick sense of humor matches the rest of our family:

1. If you’re choking on an ice cube simply pour a cup of boiling water down your throat. Presto! The blockage will instantly remove itself. 2. Avoid cutting yourself when slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold while you chop. 3. Avoid arguments with the Mrs. about lifting the toilet seat by using the sink. 4. For high blood pressure sufferers: simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure in your veins. Remember to use a timer. 5. A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button. 6. If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives, then you’ll be afraid to cough. 7. You only need two tools in life — WD-40 and Duct Tape. If it doesn’t move and should, use the WD-40. If it shouldn’t move and does, use the duct tape. 8. Remember: Everyone seems normal until you get to know them. Daily Thought: SOME PEOPLE ARE LIKE SLINKIES. NOT REALLY GOOD FOR ANYTHING BUT THEY BRING A SMILE TO YOUR FACE WHEN PUSHED DOWN THE STAIRS. If you can’t fix it with a hammer, you’ve got an electrical problem.

Chain E-Mails

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In 1997 I set up an e-mail account to support several software products I’d written for my (now-former) company. Because customers and potential customers needed to be able to find it easily, I put it on the company web page too. Predictably, it became an instant spam magnet. I couldn’t trust automated spam filters (when dealing with customer e-mails, even a single false positive is unacceptable), so I went through every message and manually decided whether it was spam or not.

Before I turned the account over to a co-worker in 2004, it was getting several hundred spam messages each day. As you may imagine, going through these on a daily basis (weekends included) got very old.

So when my mother, my sisters, and one of my aunts each got e-mail access, and started forwarding good-luck/bad-luck/money chain e-mails and ridiculous hoaxes to me, I didn’t have a lot of patience with them. Continue reading ‘Chain E-Mails’ »