Utilizing zfs for the storage of acquired data

Every day, the amount of data that is acquired from plasma experiments grows dramatically. It has become difficult for systems administrators to keep up with the growing demand for hard drive storage space. In the past, project storage has been supplied using UNIX filesystem (ufs) partitions. In order to increase the size of the disks using this system, users were required to discontinue use of the disk, so the existing data could be transferred to a disk of larger capacity or begin use of a completely new and separate disk, thus creating a segmentation of data storage. With the application of ZFS pools, the data capacity woes are over. ZFS provides simple administration that eliminates the need to unmount to resize, or transfer data to a larger disk. With a storage limit of 16 Exabytes (1018), ZFS provides immense scalability. Utilizing ZFS as the new project disk file system, users and administrators can eliminate time wasted waiting for data to transfer from one hard drive to another, and also enables more efficient use of disk space, as system administrators need only allocate what is presently required. This paper will discuss the application and benefits of using ZFS as an alternative to traditional data access and storage in the fusion environment.