The ideal file-level Time Machine-like tool for ZFS already exists and it is Windows Explorer. Not even kidding. Right click on any file or folder residing on a ZFS share and click on Properties, then click the Previous Versions tab. You can restore the file or folder from any snapshot, or just open it and look at it.

That is, until you get NTFS bitrot since you don't have checksumming.

Infernal

GP specifies a ZFS share.

4oo4

Ahh, interesting, I never thought about that. So that means you have a share mounted probably via NFS/SMB, Windows is able to read the zfs snapshots? Or are the Windows previous versions snapshots separate from the zfs ones?

mastax

You can configure samba to look for ZFS snapshots:

        vfs objects = shadow_copy2
        shadow:snapdir = .zfs/snapshot
        shadow:sort = desc
        shadow:format = zfs-auto-snap_frequent-%Y-%m-%d-%H%M

4oo4

That's awesome. I never expected Windows could integrate with zfs like that.

Speaking of, I always forget this exists too:

https://github.com/openzfsonwindows/openzfs/