Grown-up ZFS Data Corruption Bug

Grown-up ZFS Data Corruption Bug

From Oxide and Friends by Oxide Computer Company

November 26, 2025 · 1h 21m · Season 5 · Episode 33

About this episode

The episode discusses a long-standing ZFS data corruption bug with insights from the Oxide team and co-inventor Matt Ahrens.

Hey hey! We recently tripped over a ZFS data corruption bug–introduced over 18 years ago! Bryan and Adam discuss with members of the Oxide team as well as Matt Ahrens, the co-inventor of ZFS. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal , speakers included Alan Hanson, Matt Keeter , Andy Fiddaman, James MacMahon, and special guest, Matt Ahrens. Previously, on Oxide and Friends: OxF s4e6 - Crucible: the Oxide Storage Service OxF s5e28 - Systems Software in the Large Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them: ZFS fsync can trigger ZIL transaction reordering and data corruption RFD 177: Implementation of Data Storage the "fix" that introduced data corruption PRs needed! If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar . We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

People in this episode

Hosts: Bryan Cantrill, Adam Leventhal

Guest: Matt Ahrens

Topics covered

  • ZFS data corruption
  • ZIL transaction reordering
  • data storage implementation
  • Oxide team discussion
  • ZFS fsync
  • data corruption fix

Keywords

  • ZFS
  • data corruption
  • Oxide
  • transaction reordering
  • data storage
  • fsync
  • Matt Ahrens

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Oxide Computer Company

Products: ZFS

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