antony Came across this video on YouTube which seems to suggest that it certainly can - rather worrying really and has led to me abandoning GhostBSD for the while, and going back to using Ext4 on a Linux Mint Xfce single disk laptop:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7V3kmJDHTA
Your mind seems set on the issue, but I think you misunderstood the video. ZFS is not as bad as the video makes it seem, and there’s a reason GhostBSD uses it over UFS. I will take the time to explain this so people understand why GhostBSD is built around ZFS.
GhostBSD is built around ZFS Boot Environments (BE), which UFS and Ext4 do not support. This allows users to take snapshots before updates and roll back if something goes wrong—a major advantage for system stability.
ZFS also ensures data integrity with checksumming, preventing silent corruption—something UFS and Ext4 lack. Additionally, ZFS provides automatic snapshots, compression, and better file management, making it far more resilient and flexible.
The concerns about SSD wear in the video are overstated. All filesystems contribute to SSD wear over time, including UFS and Ext4. While ZFS writes more metadata due to copy-on-write and checksumming, this ensures data reliability and prevents silent corruption. UFS and Ext4 generate extra writes through journaling or soft updates but lack the same level of protection. Modern SSDs are designed to handle high write workloads, and their longevity depends more on SSD quality, firmware, and workload than the filesystem used. ZFS may write differently, but it is not inherently more harmful to SSDs than UFS or Ext4. For GhostBSD, the benefits of data integrity, snapshots, and system recovery far outweigh concerns about write behavior, making ZFS the better choice.
antony Is there any awareness of this issue amongst the GhostBSD devs?
Yes, we are aware of the concerns, but ZFS on GhostBSD is not used the same way as in the video. The test reflects a different workload, while GhostBSD optimizes ZFS for stability, Boot Environments, and snapshots without excessive SSD wear. We also continue to refine ZFS for better performance on desktops and laptops.
antony In the comments section of the video it is suggested that ZFS is not good for use in a single SSD desktop/laptop.
I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that, yet I’ve used ZFS on a single SSD for years without issue. My oldest SSD is about 7 or 8 years old and still working fine.
ZFS is not as bad for SSDs as people claim—modern SSDs are designed to handle high write workloads, and many concerns about ZFS wearing down SSDs are outdated or exaggerated. Unlike older SSDs with lower endurance, today’s drives use wear leveling, overprovisioning, and TRIM to distribute writes efficiently across memory cells, reducing excessive wear.
ZFS itself has features that help manage writes effectively. Compression reduces the amount of data written to disk, extending SSD lifespan. TRIM support ensures that the SSD can properly reclaim unused blocks, preventing performance degradation over time. Copy-on-write (CoW) may increase metadata writes, but it also prevents corruption and eliminates the need for a traditional journaling system, which can also contribute to writes on filesystems like Ext4 or UFS.
In the end, SSD quality matters far more than the filesystem used. A high-end SSD with a well-optimized controller will last significantly longer than a budget drive, regardless of whether it runs ZFS, UFS, or Ext4. ZFS does not inherently degrade SSDs—it simply manages data differently, prioritizing reliability and integrity over raw write minimization.
antony Would be nice if we at least had the UFS option to fall back on. Don't think Ext4 is supported in the FreeBSD kernel is it?
GhostBSD previously offered UFS as an option, but we decided to focus on ZFS because of its reliability, flexibility, and Boot Environments (BE), which UFS does not support. ZFS provides automatic snapshots, rollback capabilities, and data integrity checks, making it a much better fit for a desktop OS that prioritizes stability.
While UFS is a simpler filesystem, it lacks modern features like checksumming to prevent silent corruption. Boot Environments, which allow users to roll back after updates or system changes, are a key reason why ZFS is the default in GhostBSD. Given the advantages ZFS provides, we are not going back to UFS as an option.
As for Ext4, it is not supported in the FreeBSD kernel for regular use. While FreeBSD can mount Ext4 partitions for reading and limited writing, it does not offer full compatibility like Linux.
