Tuesday 26 Mar 2024

ZFS Checkpoints

Image copyright

I have heard about the checkpoint command (introudced in 2019) but did not research further. Essentially, it's a snapshot of the pool itself - at zpool level. So, for example, if you accidently delete a dataset you can restore.

If you have used the checkpoint command, you cannot use the following commands:

• remove
• attach
• detach
• split
• reguid

I suppose it's a good thing to prevent accidental detachment or removal of devices from the pool.

Here's a screenshot of my latest checkpoint:

Create a checkpoint:

zpool checkpoint pool

Where pool is the name of the pool.

If you wish to remove a checkpoint, use:

zpool checkpoint -d pool

This pool stores my pictures, documents and media. So, quite important. As always, this pool is backed up both on an external hard drive and on IDrive and AWS S3. Checkpoint feature will help save me from human error, especially as my second pool (WD Green drive) failed.