Samsung's Better exFAT Driver Gets Revised Ahead Of Mainline Linux Integration

While there has been the initial Microsoft exFAT file-system driver since Linux 5.4, that code is based on a vintage snapshot of prior Samsung code. Samsung engineers meanwhile have been working to upstream a much newer and better off exFAT implementation to replace that existing driver and it looks like it could be ready for Linux 5.6.

That current exFAT driver within the Linux kernel's staging area is on a several year old snapshot of the driver that Samsung has continued advancing internally for use on their Android devices and more. This newer Samsung driver code is more cleaned up, offers more meta-data operations, and fixes countless bugs. Once Samsung can get this driver upstream they plan to use that as their code-base moving forward.

This weekend the Samsung exFAT driver reached version 11 with more fixes to this code. So far it's getting several sign-offs by prominent upstream Linux kernel developers. As such given the timing there's chances still this exFAT driver could replacing the current staging exFAT driver potentially for Linux 5.6 if the remaining code reviews go well. But if any issues come up it could still be punted back to Linux 5.7.

Nevertheless this new Samsung exFAT driver seems to be gaining the upstream traction over other exFAT drivers like Paragon's previously commercial driver they wanted to upstream and other random forks of the prior Samsung code that has been worked up by various individuals.