ZFS Snapshot Deletion Question

[AUPhil]

Guys,

Just wondering, if I recursively delete all snapshots in a ZFS zpool, is that operation analogous to deleting virtual machine snapshots in VMware ESXi ?

Meaning, you are merely deleting all intervening checkpoints and "flattening" the object?

Thanks,
AUPhil

 

[staticlag]

Yes

 

[_Gea]

Guys,

Just wondering, if I recursively delete all snapshots in a ZFS zpool, is that operation analogous to deleting virtual machine snapshots in VMware ESXi ?

Meaning, you are merely deleting all intervening checkpoints and "flattening" the object?

Thanks,
AUPhil

ESXi snaps and ZFS snaps are completely different.
While ESXi snaps are diff-files that contains the modifications to the last state - with the
effect that your number of snaps are limited and every snap lowers performance.
A snap deletion (can last hours) is a integration of the diff file into the base file.

ZFS snaps are based on CopyOnWrite where every data-modification results in creating new datablocks.
A snap in such a situation is only a mark: do not overwrite old data. With this technology, a snap creation is
done without delay. Even thousands of snaps are possible. A deletion is: allow to overwrite old datablocks.
This is done very fast (if dedup is not activated).

There is no need to modificate any actual data like in ESXi.