ZFS: {zpool,dataset} tuning

Definitions

Most of us came from traditional storage systems, and had to wrap our minds around new concepts introduced by zfs. Let’s break it down:

zpool (RAID array + volume manager)

A zpool combines multiple physical disks into a single storage pool, handling redundancy, caching, and data integrity at the block level. It’s comparable to a:

• RAID array, but more flexible and self-healing;
• volume manager, dynamically allocating storage without requiring fixed partitions;
• storage backend, on top of which ZFS datasets (filesystems) are created;

Instead of manually partitioning disks or setting up traditional RAID, zfs automatically distributes data across the zpool.