To start playing with ZFS, the first step is to create a storage pool, and afterwards, all filesystems will be created inside these storage pools. To accomplish the creation of a storage pool, we have to decide which raid configuration we will use (stripe, mirror, or RAID-Z) to create the storage pool and, afterwards, the filesystems on it.
To follow this recipe, it is necessary to use a virtual machine (VMware or VirtualBox) that runs Oracle Solaris 11 with 4 GB RAM and eight 4 GB disks. Once the virtual machine is up and running, log in as the root user and open a terminal.
A storage pool is a logical object, and it represents the physical characteristics of the storage and must be created before anything else. To create a storage pool, the first step is to list all the available disks on the system and choose what disks will be used by running the following command as the root role:
root@solaris11-1:~# format
Searching...