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Is it possible to use ZFS without RAID? Does it have any advantage to do so compared to using BTRFS instead?

inf3rno
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Is it possible to use ZFS without RAID?

Yes. While not a best practice, it is a common set up.

Does it have any advantage to do so compared to using BTRFS instead?

Depends on what you are running.

ZFS is not bundled with the Linux kernel but supported by some Linux distributions.

BTRFS is bundled with the Linux kernel but not supported on non Linux platforms (BSDs, Solaris,...) although there is a Windows reimplementation.

ZFS supports ditto blocks (copies) giving some protection against media partial corruption. Here is a page describing some ZFS advantages against BTRFS.

jlliagre
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    I will run most probably Ubuntu server, certainly a Linux distro. Is the high memory consumption RAID-Z specific by ZFS? If it is not the best practice then what do you recommend instead by a non-RAID setup? – inf3rno Jul 30 '17 at 10:41
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    Yes, Ubuntu is the first Linux distro to officially suport ZFS. You can (and generally should) cap ZFS memory consumption to suit your requirements. Best performance and failure protection is obtained with mirroring. – jlliagre Jul 30 '17 at 11:00