zfs driver
also: ZFS module, zfs.ko, OpenZFS driver
A kernel module that implements ZFS (Zettabyte File System) functionality in Linux, enabling advanced storage management features like snapshots, cloning, and data integrity checking.
ZFS is a modern file system and logical volume manager originally developed by Sun Microsystems. The ZFS driver is the Linux kernel module (typically zfs.ko) that allows the Linux kernel to understand and work with ZFS-formatted storage pools and datasets.
The driver provides access to ZFS's powerful features including copy-on-write snapshots, compression, RAID-like redundancy (via vdevs), deduplication, and built-in data integrity verification using checksums. It operates alongside the SPL (Solaris Porting Layer) compatibility module.
Example: After installing ZFS tools and loading the driver with modprobe zfs, you can create a storage pool with zpool create mypool /dev/sda and manage datasets with full snapshot capabilities, something traditional Linux ext4 or XFS cannot natively do.
Note: ZFS driver support on Linux is community-maintained (OpenZFS project) rather than part of the mainline Linux kernel, so it requires separate installation and compilation on most distributions.