Google Is Adding Support For Metadata Encryption To F2FS

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Google Is Adding Support For Metadata Encryption To F2FS

F2FS as the Flash-Friendly File-System has long supported transparent file-system encryption via Linux's FSCRYPT framework but now Google engineers are working on allowing the file-system metadata to also be encrypted...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=F2FS-Metadata-Encryption

[uid313]

F2FS is very popular on Android devices, but why isn't F2FS used instead of ext4 on laptops, desktops and servers and in the cloud?

[skeevy420]

F2FS is very popular on Android devices, but why isn't F2FS used instead of ext4 on laptops, desktops and servers and in the cloud?

Because Android devices and other such devices use Flash memory which can benefit from wear-leveling abilities of F2FS since most of those don't have built-in wear-leveling controllers. Most laptops, desktops, and servers use HDDs or SSDs which have built-in wear-leveling controllers so they don't benefit from the primary feature of F2FS.

[TheLexMachine]

F2FS is very popular on Android devices, but why isn't F2FS used instead of ext4 on laptops, desktops and servers and in the cloud?

F2FS is not production-ready and is in a constant state of development and improvement, so it's not really used outside of phones/tablets at this time.

[uid313]

F2FS is not production-ready and is in a constant state of development and improvement, so it's not really used outside of phones/tablets at this time.

Not production-ready? Well it does ship on billions of end-user devices used everyday.

[dreich]

Not production-ready? Well it does ship on billions of end-user devices used everyday.

So does ext4.

[Vistaus]

F2FS is not production-ready and is in a constant state of development and improvement, so it's not really used outside of phones/tablets at this time.

If it's not production-ready, then you might want to inform enterprises using Android phones to stop using them as enterprises crave stuff that's production-ready.

[zanny]

F2FS is very popular on Android devices, but why isn't F2FS used instead of ext4 on laptops, desktops and servers and in the cloud?

You can use it, same as why btrfs has been great for years but almost every distro still defaults to ext4. There is huge inertia to change that when the marginal improvements other FSes offer aren't that significant or ubiquitous for a userbase. Especially when every installer lets you pick your FS anyway its defaulted to because it has been defaulted to for over a decade.

[Old Grouch]

I use NILFS2. I would love to use F2Fs if it had the same, or better checkpointing and snapshot capabilities as NILFS2. But it doesn't. Unfortunately, my coding abilities are not good enough to develop the necessary changes for F2Fs, so I have to ride on the back of other peoples itches.

[skeevy420]

You can use it, same as why btrfs has been great for years but almost every distro still defaults to ext4. There is huge inertia to change that when the marginal improvements other FSes offer aren't that significant or ubiquitous for a userbase. Especially when every installer lets you pick your FS anyway its defaulted to because it has been defaulted to for over a decade.

I'd argue that Ext4 is the best choice if a person looks at a list of file systems and doesn't know why they'd pick one for what. Ext4 offers decent features, performance, and tried-and-true stability and reliability. My only nag with Ext4 is all the bullcrap needed to do to enable case insensitivity. Custom mkfs command, custom mount option, and finally some CHATTR magic. XFS is a strong contender for the default file system role, too.

Once you start straying too far from those two is when you run into bootloader compatibility issues, swap file support, needing to know how to pair FS features with programs (like BTRFS and nocowing databases), and other things you'd expect a sys-admin to know how to manage but not necessarily the average user.