NOVA: The Newest Linux File-System, Designed For Persistent Memory

[phoronix]

Phoronix: NOVA: The Newest Linux File-System, Designed For Persistent Memory

It's been an interesting week for Linux storage with Red Hat deprecating Btrfs and Stratis being their next-gen Linux storage bet. Independent of that is now the announcement of NOVA, a new Linux file-system coming out of university research into file-systems for persistent memory...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NOVA-File-System

[Vistaus]

So does that mean I can use this on my laptop if I wanted to (I'm guessing that an SSD is "persistent memory")?

[droste]

Probably not. SSD are usually not byte-addressable which seems to be a requirement.

[GI_Jack]

I was just thinking, Linux just needs YET ANOTHER FILESYSTEM? WHAT?

OK, mabey I'm sore:

1. No AUFS
2. No kernel NTFS, ExFAT
3. UFS support sucks.

all three I need. 2 and 3 would be awesome for doing recovery on a linux console, which happens a lot.

[timofonic]

I was just thinking, Linux just needs YET ANOTHER FILESYSTEM? WHAT?

OK, mabey I'm sore:

1. No AUFS
2. No kernel NTFS, ExFAT
3. UFS support sucks.

all three I need. 2 and 3 would be awesome for doing recovery on a Linux console, which happens a lot.

There's kernel ExFAT, thanks to Samsung...

https://opensource.samsung.com/reception/receptionSub.do?method=sub&searchValue=N935

https://github.com/dorimanx/exfat-nofuse

https://github.com/jcadduono/linux_fs_exfat

https://github.com/Red54/exfat

https://github.com/vstavskyi/exfat

https://github.com/coolshou/exfat

https://github.com/simex31/exfat-nofuse-1.2.4

https://github.com/benpicco/linux_exfat-staging

WTF? https://github.com/peteratebs/rtfsprofatfilesystem
Ported to AmigaOS/AROS...

https://github.com/salass00/exfat

It's not in mainline, maybe because patents or some shit like that.

[Vistaus]

Probably not. SSD are usually not byte-addressable which seems to be a requirement.

Thanks. So if I wanted a "next-gen" file system, I'd be better off waiting for Stratis then (or whatever comes along in the meantime, not counting in Btrfs).

[timofonic]

Thanks. So if I wanted a "next-gen" file system, I'd be better off waiting for Stratis then (or whatever comes along in the meantime, not counting in Btrfs).

Stratis isn't a file-system, but a giant enterprise framework. I doubt it would be usable for a desktop system, but for a big NAS (for example).

I think persistent memory is somehow the unification of HDD and RAM, some people consider achieving that in an effective way would mean a big revolution in computing because a lot less bottlenecks and other advantages (but maybe some disadvantages... memory leaks becoming even more dangerous?). Then the other idea would be to be as fast at the faster CPU memory, but that's another pipe dream.

TO ANYONE: Please correct me if I'm wrong or explain it better...

[DrYak]

2. No kernel NTFS, ExFAT

That's absolutely impossible for legal reasons.
As long as you don't fix patent law in most jurisdiction (including the US' asinine software patent laws).
So stop complaining and start signing petitions, etc.

But...
- there's the out-of-tree ExFAT for in-kernel (as mentioned above)

- FUSE with NTFS-3G and exfat work just marvelously.
(I've even recompiled them for my smartphone).

[starshipeleven]

I was just thinking, Linux just needs YET ANOTHER FILESYSTEM? WHAT?

You know what is a persistent memory device right?

You know that just throwing a "RAMdisk" and formatting it as a normal block device while keeping a few GBs to be used as RAM is plain retarded?

[starshipeleven]

I think persistent memory is somehow the unification of HDD and RAM, some people consider achieving that in an effective way would mean a big revolution in computing because a lot less bottlenecks and other advantages (but maybe some disadvantages... memory leaks becoming even more dangerous?). Then the other idea would be to be as fast at the faster CPU memory, but that's another pipe dream.

TO ANYONE: Please correct me if I'm wrong or explain it better...

This is more or less how I understand it too.

To use that technology effectively we need a specialized filesystem, same reason we have UBI/UBIFS and JFFS2 for raw flash devices.