zfs discuss - Jun 2010 - Creating a dataset from a directory?

Hi all

I''ve ran into this thing a few times. A directory is filled up with
scientific data, and a subdirectory of that is used as a workspace with hundreds
of gigabytes of temporary data. When automatic snapshotting is enabled, this
obviously eats disk space. Now, the obvious way to solve this is to never use
those areas as workspace areas, and to teach the users to use separate areas for
that, but then, the world is not always a nice place.

Would it be hard to add a way create a new dataset with an existing directory,
separating this directory and subdirectories and files, perhaps also snapshots?
 
Vennlige hilsener / Best regards

roy
--
Roy Sigurd Karlsbakk
(+47) 97542685
roy at karlsbakk.net
http://blogg.karlsbakk.net/
--
I all pedagogikk er det essensielt at pensum presenteres intelligibelt. Det er
et element?rt imperativ for alle pedagoger ? unng? eksessiv anvendelse av
idiomer med fremmed opprinnelse. I de fleste tilfeller eksisterer adekvate og
relevante synonymer p? norsk.

On Jun 26, 2010, at 7:37 AM, Roy Sigurd Karlsbakk wrote:
> Hi all
> 
> I''ve ran into this thing a few times. A directory is filled up
with scientific data, and a subdirectory of that is used as a workspace with
hundreds of gigabytes of temporary data. When automatic snapshotting is enabled,
this obviously eats disk space. Now, the obvious way to solve this is to never
use those areas as workspace areas, and to teach the users to use separate areas
for that, but then, the world is not always a nice place.
> 
> Would it be hard to add a way create a new dataset with an existing
directory, separating this directory and subdirectories and files, perhaps also
snapshots?
That will be space-inefficient, but if space efficiency isn''t your
biggest
problem, then it can be done.

An alternative that is worth investigating is delegation of the create
filesystem
command. If a user wants a specialized file system, then allow them to create
the file systems and set properties as needed.
 -- richard

-- 
Richard Elling
richard at nexenta.com   +1-760-896-4422
ZFS and NexentaStor training, Rotterdam, July 13-15, 2010
http://nexenta-rotterdam.eventbrite.com/