Replicating to non-truenas / ZFS remote

[mauzilla]

I want to replicate a data volume "off site" and the remote server is RAID controlled (non-zfs) - I noted that the replication for remote offers SSH, so is there any constraints on the receiving end / requirements? Also, on the destination side, is the data volume accessible like normal files or would there be additional actions required if the destination is not a truenas server?

 

[mav@]

Preferable way of replication is ZFS replication, but remote side has to have ZFS. Otherwise you may use for example rsync, independent of file system and existing for most platforms.

 

[mauzilla]

Preferable way of replication is ZFS replication, but remote side has to have ZFS. Otherwise you may use for example rsync, independent of file system and existing for most platforms.

Fair to then assume replication will be extremely slow / file level if something like rsync is used (and not ZFS)?

 

[mav@]

It will be slower, yes, since without tight file system integration it does not know which parts of file could change and has to compare explicitly. Though I have no specific numbers. ZFS replication stream may also transfer compressed data without re-compression.