[BBLISA] SunFire 4500: Linux + ZFS/FUSE ?

[Brian McAllister]

I have been gifted with a SunFire 4500 to use as the file server for a
cluster I'm building.  It is currently running Solaris 10, with a 2-disk
RAID0 set for the system and a 44+2 disk ZFS/RAID-Z2 set for the rest.  We
do not have support for Solaris, don't want to pay for it, and management
is reluctant to run something that's not being updated.

[Note: I know this is old, that disks will fail, etc, etc.  I need to make
it work as is.  If it's a problem to maintain, then I can argue for
replacing it.]

I am not enthused about the current state of the various "native" ports of
ZFS for Linux.  I have been advised by a colleague that ZFS/FUSE on Linux
is a viable option from a performance and reliability viewpoint.  My plan
would be to install to one of the two boot disks (leaving Solaris on the
other for now as failsafe) and re-use the ZFS pool without alteration.

Does anyone have experience with this combination ?

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Brian McAllister                                   Senior Software Engineer
mcallister at mit.edu                      Bates Research & Engineering Center
(617) 253-9537                                                Middleton, MA