F2FS Patches Provide Support For Inline Data

For potential merging in an upcoming Linux kernel release are new patches that allow storing small files as inline data for F2FS.

The Flash-Friendly File-System patches published on Monday allow storing small files directly in the file-system's inode rather than storing it elsewhere and connecting it via a single block address. The F2FS inode is quite large and can then allow storing files about 3.6K and smaller directly inline.

With the Linux 3.8 kernel, EXT4 gained inline data support. The new F2FS patches are currently under a "request for comments" state and can be found on the Linux kernel mailing list.

The most recent F2FS benchmarks from the Linux 3.10 kernel and compared to EXT4 and Btrfs can be found in this article.