[OpenIndiana-discuss] OpenIndiana on ARM - WAS:: the end is near? ::Fwd: Re: [zfs-discuss] zfs on 32 bit?

[Jerry Kemp]

I think that the OpenIndiana discussion is spot on, and I am always excited to 
see this discussion come back to a head.

I believe I have reposted this previously, but in case you haven't seen it, here 
is one of the earliest post from Erik Trimble @ Sun announcing that 
OpenSolaris/Indiana, then current at the time, had been successfully ported to ARM.

Further study into this shows that there was also a special version of ZFS, 
termed CZFS, that was optimized to function in low resource environments.

I was never able to acquire any of the source code, or binaries for the ARM 
port.  I'm sure that someone out there worked on this and has the stuff though.

Jerry


-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Re: [zfs-discuss] zfs on 32 bit?
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:18:40 -0700
From: Erik Trimble <Erik.Trimble at Sun.COM>
Organization: Sun Microsystems
CC: zfs-discuss <zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org>

Erik Trimble wrote:
> Fajar A. Nugraha wrote:
>> Are they feasible targets for zfs?
>>
>> The N610N that I have (BCM3302, 300MHz, 64MB) isn't even powerful
>> enough to saturate either the gigabit wired or 802.11n wireless. It
>> only goes about 25Mbps.
>>
>> Last time I test on EEPC 2G's Celeron, zfs is slow to the point of
>> unusable. Will it be usable enough on most ARMs?
>>
>>
> Well, given that ARM processors use a completely different ISA (ie.
> they're not x86-compatible), OpenSolaris won't run on them currently.
>
> If you'd like to do the port....
>
> <wink>
>
> I can't say as to the entire Atom line of stuff, but I've found the
> Atoms are OK for desktop use, and not anywhere powerful enough for
> even a basic NAS server.  The demands of wire-speed Gigabit, ZFS, and
> encryption/compression are hard on the little Atom guys. Plus, it
> seems to be hard to find an Atom motherboard which supports more than
> 2GB of RAM, which is a serious problem.
>

Open mouth, insert foot.

The ARM port is now functional (and available). I would assume (though I can't 
verify) that ZFS support is part of the port.

There are a wide variety of ARM chips, in all sorts of stuff. Given the 
performance characteristics of some of the stuff I've been playing with over the 
last decade (and a pre-look at an ARM-based netbook), I'd have to say that any 
currently-available single-chip ARM-based system isn't going to be good to run 
OpenSolaris/ZFS on.

That said, I can certainly see some really, really good uses for ARM-based 
microcontrollers as the guts of an HBA.   They're likely good enough to do 
something like a tiny computer-on-a-board setup.  Think something like a Sun 
7110-style system shrunk down to a PCI-E controller - you have a simple 
host-based control program, hook a disk (or storage system) to the ARM HBA, and 
you could have a nice little embedded ZFS system.

Either that, or if someone would figure out a way to have multiple-chip ARM 
implementations (where they could spread out the load efficiently).

-- 
Erik Trimble
Java System Support
Mailstop:  usca22-123
Phone:  x17195
Santa Clara, CA

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