Skip to content

ZFS on Linux – Installation and Setup

Use at your own risk. All guides and scripts are provided for educational purposes only. Always review and understand any code before running it — especially with administrative privileges. Test in a safe environment before using in production. Your system, your responsibility.

This guide covers installing OpenZFS on Ubuntu or Debian and creating your first storage pool. If you’re new to ZFS, start with the ZFS Introduction first.

Requirements

  • Ubuntu 20.04+ or Debian 11+
  • At least one dedicated disk for ZFS (separate from your OS disk)
  • At least 8 GB RAM (more is better for ZFS caching)

Step 1 – Install OpenZFS 

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y zfsutils-linux

Verify the installation:

zfs --version

Step 2 – Find Your Disks

List available disks:

lsblk

Get persistent disk IDs (always use IDs in ZFS, not /dev/sdb):

ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/

Note the IDs of the disks you want to use. They look like:

ata-WDC_WD4000FYYZ_WD-XXXXX

Step 3 – Create a Storage Pool

Single disk (no redundancy — lab use only):

sudo zpool create mypool /dev/disk/by-id/ata-YOUR-DISK-ID

Mirror (2 disks — recommended minimum for data you care about):

sudo zpool create mypool mirror \
  /dev/disk/by-id/ata-DISK1-ID \
  /dev/disk/by-id/ata-DISK2-ID

RAIDZ1 (3+ disks — 1 disk fault tolerance):

sudo zpool create mypool raidz1 \
  /dev/disk/by-id/ata-DISK1-ID \
  /dev/disk/by-id/ata-DISK2-ID \
  /dev/disk/by-id/ata-DISK3-ID

RAIDZ2 (4+ disks — 2 disk fault tolerance):

sudo zpool create mypool raidz2 \
  /dev/disk/by-id/ata-DISK1-ID \
  /dev/disk/by-id/ata-DISK2-ID \
  /dev/disk/by-id/ata-DISK3-ID \
  /dev/disk/by-id/ata-DISK4-ID

Step 4 – Verify the Pool 

zpool status

Example output:

  pool: mypool
 state: ONLINE
config:
        NAME        STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
        mypool      ONLINE       0     0     0
          mirror-0  ONLINE       0     0     0
            sdb     ONLINE       0     0     0
            sdc     ONLINE       0     0     0

Check available space:

zpool list

Step 5 – Create Datasets

Datasets are like folders inside a pool, but with their own properties (compression, quotas, snapshots):

# Create a dataset
sudo zfs create mypool/data
sudo zfs create mypool/backups
sudo zfs create mypool/media

List datasets:

zfs list

Datasets are automatically mounted at /mypool/data, /mypool/backups etc.

Step 6 – Enable Compression

ZFS compression is highly recommended — it’s fast and saves significant disk space:

sudo zfs set compression=lz4 mypool

LZ4 is the recommended compression algorithm — fast with good compression ratio. Enable it on the pool level and all datasets inherit it automatically.

Check compression ratio after some data is written:

zfs get compressratio mypool

Step 7 – Set Up Regular Scrubs

A scrub verifies and repairs data integrity. Run it monthly:

sudo zpool scrub mypool

Check scrub status:

zpool status mypool

To automate monthly scrubs, add a cron job:

sudo crontab -e

Add:

0 2 1 * * zpool scrub mypool

This runs a scrub at 2am on the 1st of every month.

Set Mount Point and Permissions

Change where a dataset is mounted:

sudo zfs set mountpoint=/mnt/data mypool/data

Set permissions:

sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /mnt/data

Related Links