You know, ZFS, ButterFS (btrfs…its actually “better” right?), and I’m sure more.
I think I have ext4 on my home computer I installed ubuntu on 5 years ago. How does the choice of file system play a role? Is that old hat now? Surely something like ext4 has its place.
I see a lot of talk around filesystems but Ive never found a great resource that distiguishes them at a level that assumes I dont know much. Can anyone give some insight on how file systems work and why these new filesystems, that appear to be highlights and selling points in most distros, are better than older ones?
Edit: and since we are talking about filesystems, it might be nice to describe or mention how concepts like RAID or LUKS are related.
That’s interesting! I was under the same impression as the OP in terms of thinking that “COW” was a single monolothic “thing”. It makes me realize I don’t actually understand what’s going on at the nuts & bolts level very well.
If you’ve the time and knowledge, could you talk more about that? In modern implementations, is COW a true upgrade with no practical downsides? If so, what’s up with the popular myth that there’s a fundamental performance tradeoff? Moving forward should we start thinking of COW as an innovation which obsoletes older technologies or should it continue to be considered something of a sidegrade?