An Exciting Btrfs Update With Encoded I/O, Fsync Performance Improvements

Written by Michael Larabel in Linux Storage on 22 March 2022 at 06:11 AM EDT. 59 Comments
LINUX STORAGE
SUSE's David Sterba on Monday submitted the Btrfs file-system updates for the in-development Linux 5.18 kernel.

With Btrfs adoption ticking up in more recent times, this kernel is bringing more exciting work to this "next-generation" Linux file-system. There is the addition of the encoded I/O ioctls, multiple improvements to Btrfs' fsync handling, preparations for the new extent trees layout, and more.

- Fsync speed-ups, including up to 90% lower run-time during directory logging. There is also fsync work to avoid logging all directory changes during renames, which can save up to 60% run-time. There is also work to avoid inode logging during rename and linking as also cutting the run-time up to 60%. There are other changes to also boost throughput and other enhancements.

- Encoded read/write interfaces. This Btrfs encoded I/O allows user-space to read/write raw data directly to extents such as for compressed data right now and supporting encrypted data in the future.

- Continued work on the Btrfs extent tree v2 changes.

- The Btrfs VFS code now allows reflinks and deduplication from two different mounts of the same file-system.

- Btrfs zoned mode now works with metadata DUP.

- Improved error messages for the file-system driver.

- Fixes and other low-level improvements.

See this pull request for the full list of Btrfs feature changes for Linux 5.18.


Btrfs continues being one of the most promising, feature-rich Linux file-systems that is in the mainline kernel.

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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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