Book excerpt: The ZFS file system offers a dramatic advance in data management with an innovative approach to data integrity, tremendous performance improvements, and a welcome integration of file system and volume management capabilities. The centerpiece of this new architecture is the concept of a virtual storage pool, which decouples the file system from physical storage in the same way that virtual memory abstracts the address space from physical memory, allowing for much more efficient use of storage devices. In ZFS, space is shared dynamically between multiple file systems from a single storage pool and is parceled out from the pool as file systems request it. Physical storage can therefore be added to storage pools dynamically, without interrupting services. This provides new levels of flexibility, availability, and performance. Because ZFS is a 128-bit file system, its theoretical limits are truly mind-boggling–2128 bytes of storage and 264 for everything else, including file systems, snapshots, directory entries, devices, and more. SolarisTM 10 ZFS Essentials is the perfect guide for learning how to deploy and manage ZFS file systems. If you are new to Solaris or are using ZFS for the first time, you will find it very easy to get ZFS up and running on your home system or your business IT infrastructure by following the simple instructions in this book. Then you too will understand all the benefits ZFS offers: Rock-solid data integrity No silent data corruption–ever Mind-boggling scalability Breathtaking speed Near-zero administration SolarisTM 10 ZFS Essentials is part of the Solaris System Administration Series and is intended for use as a full introduction and hands-on guide to Solaris ZFS.