F2FS Experimental Compression Is Ready For Extending Flash Storage Life

The F2FS file-system compression functionality is the main feature addition for this flash-optimized file-system coming with the Linux 5.6 kernel. This native LZO/LZ4 compression support is geared for optimizing the lifespan of SSDs/flash memory thanks to reducing disk writes.

This F2FS compression support is still experimental with Linux 5.6 but is easy to activate via a mount option. LZO and LZ4 compression algorithms are available right now while other formats are being investigated for supporting in the future. The compress_algorithm mount option can be used for specifying the mode and there are several other compression options too, such as for limiting the compression to certain file extensions.

The focus of this F2FS compression support is less about maximizing storage capacity and more about trying to reduce writes to extend the life of the flash storage and reducing I/O congestion.

This compression support is part of the F2FS for 5.6 pull along hardening the power-cut behavior for zoned block devices, changes to the garbage collection mutex, and several bug fixes.