Detailing the design of the new ZFS AnyRAID vdev type, which allows applying mirror or RAID-Z redundancy across a mismatched set of disks.
For example, a 4T, two 6T, and an 8T disk can be combined into one vdev. Under normal ZFS mirrors, this would net 10T of space, and RAID-Z1 would net 12T. With AnyRAID these same disks can net 12 and 16T respectively.
AnyRAID also allows the ability to add and remove disks over time, creating much more flexibility.
While originally designed for a homelab / prosumer use case, this feature also has enterprise use cases with the advent of "self regenerating HDDs", and other features where a disk may need to be partially but not fully replaced.
We'll cover how tiles are used, how data can be relocated without changing its DVA, the new on-disk format, and how the new flexibility was unlocked.