Reviews for Solaris 10 ZFS Essentials (Solaris System Administration)

1. The ultimate shame

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, April 12th, 2010

   I stopped reading on page ix, where it says, "ZFS is a 128-bit file system. Its theoretical limits are truly mind-boggling--2,218 bytes of storage and 264 for everything else, including file systems, [...]".
   
   2,128 bytes of storage. 264 file systems. Mind-boggling, indeed.
   
   This would be bad enough had it been typeset by Joe Bloggs in HTML 3.02, but reality check, this book proudly shows off a this big Sun logo, in good company of a this big Prentice Hall logo, also in good company of a price tag rather large for a book this size (plenty of screen shots for stuffing, too).
   
   As for the rest of the content, a rather cursory skim suggests the only edge this book has over "Solaris ZFS Administration Guide" off sun.com are some screen shots of dubious value -- 27 pages, that's about 20-odd(!) percent, of the book is about configuring VirtualBox and installing Solaris in it.
   
   This book is the ultimate shame on Sun, on Prentice Hall, on just about everyone involved, and is totally unworthy of being published as part of a series with such high-profile and absolutely brilliant books as Solaris Internals or Solaris Performance and Tools.
   
   Absolute zero value for a comparatively lot of money.

2. A bit lightweight

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, February 12th, 2010

   This book is a very slim volume, and while the content is generally fine it doesn't really take you very far. It's not much better than simply reading the online documentation. Not recommended unless you're an absolute beginner who likes to use a textbook.