A systems administrator is building a new storage server to archive critical financial data. The primary design requirement is to guarantee data integrity over the long term, with capabilities to detect and correct silent data corruption automatically. The file system itself must manage data verification and repair when configured with redundant drives. Which of the following file systems is the BEST choice for this scenario?
The correct answer is ZFS. ZFS was designed with end-to-end data integrity as a core principle. It uses checksums for all data and metadata blocks to constantly check for and detect data corruption, a condition often called 'bit rot'. When ZFS is used with a redundant storage configuration (such as mirroring or RAID-Z), it can automatically repair the corrupted data using a correct copy, a process known as self-healing.
ReFS (Resilient File System) is a strong distractor because it also offers data integrity streams and can repair corruption. However, this self-healing capability is designed to work in conjunction with Windows' Storage Spaces technology, which provides the data redundancy. ZFS is considered the best answer because it is an integrated solution combining both the file system and volume manager to natively provide these features.
ext4 is a common and reliable file system for Linux, but it only provides checksums for filesystem metadata, not for the user data itself.
NTFS is the standard Windows file system. While it has features for reliability like journaling, it lacks the built-in end-to-end data checksumming and self-healing capabilities that define ZFS and ReFS.
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Why is end-to-end data integrity important in file systems?
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What is RAID-Z, and how does it work with ZFS?
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How does ZFS differ from ReFS in terms of functionality?