G-Technology G-RACK 12, User Manual

Page: 256 / 296

F.A.Q.
p. 256
G-RACK 12 BTRfs Backgrounder
What is BTRfs?
B-tree file system. Pronounced as “butter F S”, “better F S”, “b-tree F S”, or simply by spelling it out.
How long has it been around? Initially designed at Oracle Corporation for use in Linux. The
development of BTRfs began in 2007. August 2014, the file system’s on-disk format has been marked
as stable.
Is it stable? August 2014, the file system’s on-disk format has been marked as stable. Since its
inception there have been over 45+ official releases. It has a very active community of developers.
BTRfs is a file system which is completely made from scratch. The BTRfs exists because its developers
firstly wanted to expand the file system functionality in order to include snapshots, pooling, as well
as checksums among the other things. While it is independent from the ext4, it also wants to build
off the ideas present in the ext4 that are great for the consumers and the businesses alike as well as
incorporate those additional features that will benefit everybody, but specifically the enterprises.
The role file systems play in storage devices.
Each file system has a different take on how and where to put data on the disks. Where files are
stored and how they are organized is the essential role of any filesystem. Speed of retrieval is a key
factor in both the design of filesystems and the selection of them for your computer.
Just in case if you are unfamiliar about what file systems really do, it is actually simple when it is
summarized. The file systems are mainly used in order for controlling how the data is stored after
any program is no longer using it, how access to the data is controlled, what other information
(metadata) is attached to the data itself, etc. I know that it does not sound like an easy thing to be
programmed, and it is definitely not. The file systems are continually still being revised for including
more functionality while becoming more efficient in what it simply needs to do. Therefore, however,
it is a basic need for all computers, it is not quite as basic as it sounds like.
Why is BTRfs a good choice for a file system?
The key features of BTRfs are highly desirable to most computer systems administrators:
•
Snapshots
• Sub-volumes
• Quotas