The EXT4 file-system updates have landed in Linux 5.10 with some notable additions for this mature file-system.

The NFS client code with Linux 5.10 has another performance optimization.

Last week saw the XFS file-system with Linux 5.10 support timestamps until the year 2486 rather than year 2038 and other improvements too. This week a second round of XFS work has landed for Linux 5.10.

The fourth release candidate of OpenZFS 2.0 is now available for testing of this open-source ZFS file-system implementation currently for Linux and FreeBSD platforms.

Back in August was the surprise that Paragon Software is looking to mainline their NTFS read-write driver in the mainline Linux kernel after years of offering it as a commercial driver for those needing reliable support for this Microsoft file-system on Linux. Two months later they are now up to their ninth revision of this driver in their pursuit of mainline inclusion.

OverlayFS as the Linux union mount file-system that allows combining multiple underlying mount points into one is seeing a new feature with Linux 5.10.

The Flash-Friendly File-System (F2FS) that is of growing prominence on Android-powered mobile phones and other flash-storage-only Linux systems has some promising improvements with Linux 5.10.

Not only is Btrfs seeing notable improvements with the in-development Linux 5.10 kernel but the XFS file-system also has some prominent changes of its own.

After being in development for more than one year, it looks like with Linux 5.10 there will be EXT4 fast commit support.

Back in August was the big surprise of file-system driver vendor Paragon Software wanting to mainline their NTFS driver into the Linux kernel that is much more advanced than the existing NTFS Linux driver. While not merged yet, on Friday the latest version was sent out for review.

The virtual OpenZFS Developer Summit got underway on Tuesday with many interesting talks on the open-source work around the ZFS file-system.

While the feature-packed OpenZFS 2.0 is on track for releasing before year's end as the evolution of ZFSOnLinux and now with FreeBSD support and many other improvements in tow, for those riding the ZFSOnLinux 0.8 stable series out today is v0.8.5.

F2FS as the Flash-Friendly File-System has long supported transparent file-system encryption via Linux's FSCRYPT framework but now Google engineers are working on allowing the file-system metadata to also be encrypted.

The EXT4 file-system with the upcoming Linux 5.10 kernel has an optimization yielding big benefits for file overwrites in some circumstances.

The third release candidate of OpenZFS 2.0 is now available for this open-source ZFS file-system implementation currently for Linux and FreeBSD platforms.

A new version of Stratis is ready to go as Red Hat's open-source storage solution built atop LVM and XFS for offering easy and modern local storage management on Linux systems that aim to rival the likes of Btrfs and ZFS but without having to rely on a new file-system.

Micron's Mpool is at the heart of their HSE Open-Source Storage Engine in providing an object storage media pool built atop block storage devices. Micron engineers are now looking at possibly having Mpool upstreamed into the mainline Linux kernel.

Queued today into the block subsystem's "-next" area ahead of the Linux 5.10 cycle kicking off next month are some MD RAID enhancements.

Nearly one month ago OpenZFS 2.0 saw its first release candidate while now it's been succeeded by another test candidate in time for some weekend exposure.

Yet another new file-system being worked on for the Linux/open-source world is NVFS and has been spearheaded by a Red Hat engineer.

In making for easier code re-use among file-systems and allowing a unified implementation to focus on a single code-base for optimizations moving forward, a generic case-folding implementation for Linux file-systems is being prepared for mainline.

Judging from the latest FUSE Git activity, it's looking like the VirtIO-FS DAX patches that have been around since last year could be merged for Linux 5.10. This can provide a significant speed-up for those making use of this FUSE file-system for sharing files/folders with guest VMs.

After originally publishing the Incremental FS patches back in May of 2019, Google's Android kernel team is still working to upstream this virtual file-system into the mainline Linux kernel and at this week's Linux Plumbers Conference was working to drum up support for it.

Two weeks ago file-system driver vendor Paragon Software posted patches for their previously commercial NTFS Linux driver with hopes of getting the code mainlined. That initial patch drew some criticism for how it was handled but a week later a new version was published that split up the patches nicely and had other feedback. Prior to calling it a weekend, Paragon sent out a third version of the "NTFS3" Linux kernel driver patches.

The first release candidate of the forthcoming OpenZFS 2.0 is now available for testing on both Linux and BSD systems.

We previously reported on F2FS "ATGC" functionality for increasing the garbage collection efficiency for the Flash-Friendly File-System. Those patches are now queued up in F2FS' "dev" branch meaning we could see the functionality in place for Linux 5.10.

Adding to the list of software projects embracing Zstd for its very efficient compression abilities, OpenZFS is now supporting the Facebook-developed Zstandard as its latest file-system compression support.

With all the Linux 5.9 kernel changes you may have noticed no major EXT4 file-system pull request was submitted during the kernel merge window the prior two weeks. Fortunately, the EXT4 work has now been sent out and Linus Torvalds honored the late changes for this widely-used Linux file-system.

The Linux IO_uring interface for driving some major efficiency improvements in the Linux I/O stack is really screaming when paired with Intel's next-gen Ice Lake Xeon server platforms and the Intel Gen2 "Alder Stream" Optane solid-state drives.

Coming as a surprise last week was word of Paragon Software wanting to mainline their NTFS read-write driver as a significant improvement over the existing NTFS Linux kernel driver. An updated patch series for that much improved NTFS Linux kernel driver is now available.