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---
title: "First Time the ZFS Saved Me"
categories: blog
abstract: Automatic snapshot saved me from a full system reinstalation
date: 2023-03-18T06:04:33+01:00
year: 2023
draft: false
---
{{<img-pull-right "zfs-logo.png">}}
As I was recently trying to [enable auto-switching audio to headphones](/2023/switching-between-speakers-and-headphones-on-freebsd/), I borked my FreeBSD installation. Somehow the speakers stopped working, and the headphone output added a loud hiss. Unfortunately, I was unable to fix it.
My first thought was to reinstall the system, but then I remembered that I've read about [ZFS Snapshots](https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/819-5461/gbcya/index.html).
```
zfs list -t snapshot
```
revealed that FreeBSD has already created a few of those recently. I knew this OS and ZFS go hand in hand, but I was still pleasantly surprised.
To return the system to a previous version, all I had to do was
```
zfs snapshot <name>
```
and my system stopped responding. I was in X, so that's entirely on one. But the rollback was so instantaneous that my first thought was that something fried.
After a good, old hard reset, everything worked as it was a few days ago. ZFS very well may be my new best friend.
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