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It seem that Ubuntu 16.04 LTS supports the ZFS filesystem. But how do I use it? I'm sorry, I don't know very much about ZFS, but it sounds good. I want it.

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    If I may make a suggestion: practice with ZFS on a virtual machine or some other non-critical/disposable data machine. As you learn how it works, you're bound to blow away the raid data. I did this a handful of times with live data that is now forever gone Jun 27, 2016 at 13:30

3 Answers 3

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First off, use ZFS only if you really want it. See the Use Cases to know if you really need ZFS.

ZFS is supported only in 64-bit Ubuntu 16.04 installs. To install it run:

sudo apt-get install zfsutils-linux

To learn more, you can see the reference on Ubuntu or this excellent documentation.

A good introduction can also be found here

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As root in an Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS this works:

apt update
apt install -y zfs

You are then done. You can check it is there by doing:

zfs list

you can then create a pool by doing:

zpool create -f zxavi /dev/sdb

or whatever disk you want to use; and after that:

zpool status

Boom, done!

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Since I only have 1 reputation, I can neither upvote nor comment on Xavi's answer, which is the correct one. Things not to do include:

  • Do not waste your time with mountall, all of that Wiki page is obsolete as far as Xenial is concerned;
  • Do not install a package named ubuntu-zfs, or use the so-called "stable" ZFS PPA.
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    May you come with more detail in support of your advise? Feb 20, 2017 at 18:41
  • @DomQ: would be nice if you could provide some explanation for your recommendation. Sep 14, 2017 at 15:59

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