Solaris and Linux compared: Filesystems

Today we compare Solaris and Linux.
Which steps are required to create filesystems on a new virtual disk?

a) Linux

Here we are on a Redhat 10 system

[root@red10]# uname -ro
6.12.0-211.29.1.el10_2.x86_64 GNU/Linux

We have a new unused disk

[root@red10]# lsblk /dev/sdb
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sdb    8:16   0   2G  0 disk

First we have to initialize the disk

[root@red10]# pvcreate /dev/sdb
  Physical volume "/dev/sdb" successfully created.

and then create a Volume Group

[root@red10]# vgcreate datavg /dev/sdb
  Volume group "datavg" successfully created

Now a Logical Volume

[root@red10]# lvcreate -n data1 -L1g datavg
  Logical volume "data1" created.

[root@red10]# mkfs.xfs /dev/mapper/datavg-data1
meta-data=/dev/mapper/datavg-data1 isize=512    agcount=4, agsize=65536 blks
         =                       sectsz=512   attr=2, projid32bit=1
         =                       crc=1        finobt=1, sparse=1, rmapbt=1
         =                       reflink=1    bigtime=1 inobtcount=1 nrext64=1
         =                       exchange=0   metadir=0
data     =                       bsize=4096   blocks=262144, imaxpct=25
         =                       sunit=0      swidth=0 blks
naming   =version 2              bsize=4096   ascii-ci=0, ftype=1, parent=0
log      =internal log           bsize=4096   blocks=16384, version=2
         =                       sectsz=512   sunit=0 blks, lazy-count=1
realtime =none                   extsz=4096   blocks=0, rtextents=0
         =                       rgcount=0    rgsize=0 extents
         =                       zoned=0      start=0 reserved=0

And finally we create a directory and mount the new filesystem

[root@red10]# mkdir /mydata
[root@red10]# mount /dev/mapper/datavg-data1 /mydata

To mount the filesystem automatically at boot we have to 
add it to fstab

[root@red10]# blkid /dev/mapper/datavg-data1
/dev/mapper/datavg-data1: UUID="7fd552b2-1f10-4b87-bcc8-f22a22fc1f6c" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="xfs"

[root@red10]# echo 'UUID=7fd552b2-1f10-4b87-bcc8-f22a22fc1f6c /mydata xfs defaults 0 0' >>/etc/fstab

b) Solaris

We are on a Solaris 11 system

root@vbox-cbe:~# uname -ro
5.11 Solaris

We have a new disk

root@vbox-cbe:~# echo | format | grep c1t3
c1t3d0: configured with capacity of 2.00GB
       1. c1t3d0 <VBOX-HARDDISK-1.0-2.00GB>

With zfs we use one command to initialize the disk.

root@vbox-cbe:~# zpool create mypool c1t3d0

After this step, we already have a first
mounted filesystem to use.

root@vbox-cbe:~# zfs list mypool
NAME     USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
mypool  98.5K  1.95G    31K  /mypool

It is easy to create additional filesystems

root@vbox-cbe:~# zfs create -o mountpoint=/mydata mypool/mydata

root@vbox-cbe:~# zfs list -r mypool
NAME           USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
mypool         149K  1.95G    31K  /mypool
mypool/mydata   31K  1.95G    31K  /mydata

Summary

On Solaris a new filesystem is created with only 2 commands
compared to 8 commands on Linux.

Easy to understand why I prefer Solaris and ZFS