links to tips and experience using ZFS worth reading

During the searches yesterday about ZFS I found some links I should read after the frustration down to a normal level.

openSolaris documentation

This is the official/ideal start point to find documentation about openSolaris. There are links for use and internal technologies. Also book recommendations

ZFS Best Practices Guide

Only thing to say is "read it!"

Blog describing a ZFS Home Server setup

There are more to read. What I found interesting is ZFS file system and expireiences after 1 year

a Drobo replacement

Used 4 drives as RAIDZ

Overview of the ZFS File System

This sounds promising. This is in a Real Media format. VLC and mplayer only played the tone. At least I was expecting some video or slides. Come one Sun, move your "stuff" to JavaFX!

ZFS tutorial

Not only this two part tutorial looks interesting on this site. Like me he wrote down some experiences using linux, OS X and Solaris.

7 Easy Tips for ZFS Starters

Sun employee writing more about ZFS and openSolaris.

what ZFS pool to create

Yesterday I bought two Western Digital 1.5GB Caviar green. But this are only the drives to start the pool with. To get all my data into the pool using RAIDZ, I need to add the drive to the pool after copying the data from it.
Luckily before starting this I was trying this in the VirtualBox to have all commands ready and not mess up the real data. But it is not possible to expand a RAIDZ:

• Expand-O-Matic RAID-Z


• WHEN TO (AND NOT TO) USE RAID-Z

Sun designed/cares about ZFS in the professional environment. There you don't set up box with only a view drives and add drive after drive. This is only a scenario for the home user. This is only possible with a mirrored
So I will start with the pool with the two 1.5GB drives mirrored. After copying the first two 1GB drives I will add this mirrored to the pool.

start zfs pool with one disk

Some first test using the OpenSolaris live CD in VirtualBox. It helps testing the things directly you read about.

zpool create mypool c3d0
start pool with ony one disk

Created in /mypool a directory and some testfiles.

zpool attach mypool c3d0 c3d1
add a second disk as mirror

zpool detch mypool c3d0
now only the second drive exists in the pool
the data was mirrod to this drive

after reboot "mount" the pool with
zpool import mypool
use -f if the pool was not properly "exported" before