Western Digital's Zonefs File-System Looks Like It Could Be Ready To Land With Linux 5.6

Introduced last month was Zonefs as a new Linux file-system developed by Western Digital. It's looking like that new file-system could be ready for introduction with the upcoming Linux 5.6 cycle.

For those that missed the earlier article on Christmas, Zonefs is a file-system designed for running solely on zoned block devices. Zonefs exposes each zone of a zoned block device as a file, compared to traditional file-systems or how zoned block device support is exposed through the likes of F2FS and friends on host-managed/host-aware SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) disk drives. Zoned block devices allow for more economical large capacity drives.

While the Linux 5.6 cycle isn't kicking off until the start of February, there is a "for-5.6" branch now formed of the Zonefs code. The Zonefs file-system has already been through six rounds of code review on the kernel mailing list to pretty good feedback.

This documentation commit explains Zonefs in more detail for those interested in learning more about this Linux file-system catered to SMR hard drives. Even if you aren't running many hard drives these days, it's great seeing Western Digital's continued engagement in recent years with the Linux/open-source communities.