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File System Design part 1, XFS

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the get-your-hack-on dept.

rchapman writes "Generally, file systems are not considered "sexy." When a young programmer wants to do something really cool, his or her first thought is generally not "Dude, two words... File System." However, I am what is politely termed "different." I find file systems very interesting and they have seldom been more so than they are right now. Hans Reiser is working on getting Reiser4 integrated into the Linux kernel, the BSD's are working on getting a journaled file system together, and Sun Microsystems just recently released a beta of ZFS into OpenSolaris. "

5 of 57 comments (clear)

  1. File system design by Bogtha · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you're interested in this, you'll probably also be interested in Practical File System Design with the Be File System (PDF), by Dominic Giampaolo, the designer of the Be file system. There's also a Slashdot review of this book.

    --
    Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
  2. Re:Blatant error by Intron · · Score: 1, Informative

    The author also says disk mfgs are lying when they use K = 1000 bytes, M = 1000000 bytes. This person is a know-nothing.

    --
    Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
  3. Doesn't Live Up To Its Billing by JoshDanziger · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sorry, this article didn't really teach me anything interesting about filesystems. In general, the article was poorly written. For example, taking two sentences to say: "B+Trees are complex. Let me rephrase that. B+Trees are very, very complex." Readers of all types appreciate their time and don't want to have to waste it.

    You were lost at points between trying to sound like an expert to trying to sound like a grandfather explaining the grande old days of filesystem development. Are you a storyteller or a teacher? Pick one.

    Content-wise, there wasn't really much there for me. You spent a lot of time explaining the problems of a binary tree, but I think that your target audience already understands the time complexity of a binary tree. Then, you glaze over the B+ tree because its complicated.

    Sorry if I sound harsh. I hope that this comes off as constructive criticism.

  4. Re:obligatory by rplacd · · Score: 3, Informative

    The good news is, you don't need to install plan 9 to use venti. You can do it with plan9port on a Linux/FreeBSD/Mac OS X/etc box today.

  5. Re:Oh, snap. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    The main difference is, there is no fsck in XFS. None whatsoever.

    What the fuck?

    Have you read this, or even used XFS before, for that matter?