An Alternative exFAT Linux File-System Driver Based On Samsung's sdFAT

While the upcoming Linux 5.4 kernel cycle is finally bringing a driver for Microsoft exFAT file-system read/write support, it's dated on an old Samsung code drop that has seen little public work over the years. Since queued for staging-next, there has been a big uptick in clean-ups and other activity, but there also exists another alternative out-of-tree exFAT Linux driver.

Phoronix reader Park Ju Hyung wrote in about his work on the out-of-tree exfat-linux driver. This file-system module is based on the Samsung sdFAT drivers, which is a newer snapshot than the code the current Linux staging driver is based. This driver code-base is intended to be more portable and work well with the latest upstream kernels while being out-of-tree.

The performance of this exfat-linux driver has been comparable or slightly better to what is currently found in the staging tree.

Those interested in this out-of-tree exFAT Linux driver that aims to provide better support than at least the current state of the exFAT mainline code for Linux 5.4 can find the work on GitHub. With time the exFAT staging driver will continue to be nursed and we'll see if it ends up re-basing or pulling in any of this alternative implementation.