The caching can be considered optional and (in Oracle Solaris) there is a tunable user_reserve_hint_pct:

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E53394_01/html/E54818/chapterzfs-...

You didn't say the memory use was justified by providing better integrity. You said it was optional.

Yes, the memory use is optional. Pick two:

1) data integrity

2) low memory use

3) performance

With ZFS I hear it's "pick one, and you cannot pick `low memory'".

You can run ZFS with megabytes of ram, it's just slow, so it is pick 2. That being said, ZFS metadata is much bigger than it needs to be (most infamously dedupe has this issue).

Right, but to then compare the memory use of ZFS with dedupe turned on against another fs without that feature would be disingenuous since dedupe is optional in ZFS. That was the whole point of my original comment.

deduplication doesn't have necessarily to be expensive; HAMMER (the first version, not HAMMER2) has offline deduplication that is usually scheduled to run at night. This allows regular use to be quite performant and with a low memory footprint. Of course there are tradeoffs, in particular heavy disk usage at certain hours (which can be an issue depending on the workload) and the fact that space is reclaimed only after some time that it has been wasted.

I did say that ZFS metadata in general, and dedupe especially is much bigger than it needs to be. Even live dedupe can be done much more cheaply than how ZFS does it.

Lol this is FUD. ZFS is easily tunable to not blow up and use all your ram.

Does "FUD" just mean "something I disagree with" now? How is this FUD?

Spreading misinformation is what I was taking issue with not just disagreeing and making a stink about it like a troll might.

You're not appreciating nor applying the fear, uncertainty, and doubt parts of "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt".

Talking about downsides of a thing is not FUD nor making stink about it.

Depends if you want dedup.