List of file systems: Difference between revisions

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Many older [[operating system]]s support only their one "native" file system, which does not bear any name apart from the name of the operating system itself.

 

* [[Boot File System|BFS]] – the Boot File System used on System V release 4.0 and UnixWare.

* [[Be File System|BFS]] – the Be File System used on [[BeOS]], occasionally misnamed as BeFS. Open source implementation called OpenBFS is used by the [[Haiku (operating system)|Haiku]] operating system.

* [[Btrfs]] – is a [[copy-on-write]] file system for [[Linux]] announced by [[Oracle Corporation|Oracle]] in 2007 and published under the [[GNU General Public License]] (GPL).

* [[Veritas Cluster File System|CFS]] – The Cluster File System from Veritas, a Symantec company. It is the parallel access version of VxFS.

* [[CP/M]] file system — Native filesystem used in the CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers) operating system which was first released in 1974.

* [[Apple DOS|DOS 3.x]] – Original floppy operating system and file system developed for the [[Apple II]].

* [[Extent File System]] (EFS) – an older block filing system under [[IRIX]].

* [[ext2]] – Second extended file system, designed for [[Linux]] systems.

* [[ext3]] – A [[Journaling file system|journaled]] form of ext2.

* [[ext3cow]] – A [[versioning file system]] form of ext3.

* [[File Allocation Table|FAT]] – File Allocation Table, initially used on [[DOS]] and [[Microsoft Windows]] and now widely used for portable USB storage and some other devices; [[FAT12]], [[FAT16]] and [[FAT32]] for 12-, [[16-bit|16-]] and [[32-bit]] table depths.

** [[FATX]] – A modified version of [[Microsoft Windows]] FAT system that is used on the original [[Xbox (console)|Xbox]] console.

* [[Amiga Fast File System|FFS (Amiga)]] – Fast File System, used on [[Amiga]] systems. This FS has evolved over time. Now counts FFS1, FFS Intl, FFS DCache, FFS2.

}}</ref><ref name=hammer_disk.h>{{cite web|url=http://bxr.su/d/sys/vfs/hammer/hammer_disk.h|title=hammer_disk.h|author=Matt Dillon|author-link=Matt Dillon (computer scientist)|website=BSD Cross Reference|publisher=[[DragonFly BSD]]|date=2017-09-23|access-date=2019-03-06}}</ref>

* [[HAMMER2]] — recommended as the default root filesystem in DragonFly since 5.2 release in 2018<ref name=hammer2-release52>{{cite web|url=https://www.dragonflybsd.org/release52/|title=DragonFly BSD 5.2|publisher=[[DragonFly BSD]]|date=2018-06-18|access-date=2019-03-06|quote=We can now recommend H2 as the default root filesystem in non-clustered mode.}}</ref><ref name=hammer2_disk.h>{{cite web|url=http://bxr.su/d/sys/vfs/hammer2/hammer2_disk.h|title=hammer2_disk.h|author=Matt Dillon|author-link=Matt Dillon (computer scientist)|website=BSD Cross Reference|publisher=[[DragonFly BSD]]|date=2018-05-05|access-date=2019-03-06}}</ref><ref name="hammer2_design">{{cite web|url=http://bxr.su/d/sys/vfs/hammer2/DESIGN|title=hammer2/DESIGN|author=Matt Dillon|author-link=Matt Dillon (computer scientist)|date=2018-12-09|website=BSD Cross Reference|publisher=[[DragonFly BSD]]|access-date=2019-03-06}}</ref>

* [[HFS Plus|HFS+]] – Updated version of Apple's HFS, Hierarchical File System, supported on Mac OS 8.1 & above, including macOS. Supports file system journaling, enabling recovery of data after a system crash. Also referred to as 'Mac OS Extended format or HFS Plus

* [[High Performance File System|HPFS]] – High Performance File System, used on [[OS/2]]

* [[Amiga Old File System|OFS]] – Old File System, on Amiga. Good for floppies, but fairly useless on hard drives.

* [[OS-9]] file system

* [[Qnx4fs]] – File system that is used in [[QNX]] version 4 and 6.

* [[ReiserFS]] – File system that uses [[journaling file system|journaling]]

* [[Reiser4]] – File system that uses [[journaling file system|journaling]], newest version of ReiserFS

* [[Reliance (file system)|Reliance]] – Datalight's transactional file system for high reliability applications

* [[Remote File System|RFS]] – Native filesystem for [[RTEMS]]<ref name="rfs">{{cite web|title=RTEMS File System|url=http://www.rtems.org/wiki/index.php/RTEMS_File_System|access-date=20 April 2013}}</ref>

* [[SkyFS]] – Developed for [[SkyOS]] to replace BFS as the operating system's main file system. It is based on BFS, but contains many new features.

=== File systems with built-in fault-tolerance ===

These file systems have built-in checksumming and either mirroring or parity for extra redundancy on one or several block devices:

* [[Btrfs]] – A file system based on [[B-Tree]]s, initially designed at [[Oracle Corporation]].

* [[HAMMER (file system)|HAMMER]] and [[HAMMER2]] – [[DragonFly BSD]]'s primary filesystems, created by [[Matt Dillon (computer scientist)|Matt Dillon]].<ref name=lwn-hammer-2010/><ref name=hammer_disk.h/><ref name=hammer2_disk.h/><ref name=hammer2_design/>

* [[ReFS|ReFS (Resilient File System)]] – A file system by [[Microsoft]] with built-in resiliency features.

* [[Reliance (file system)|Reliance]] – A transactional file system with [[cyclic redundancy check|CRCs]], created by Datalight.

* [[ZFS]] – Has checksums for all data; important metadata is always redundant, additional redundancy levels are user-configurable; [[copy-on-write]] and transactional writing ensure metadata consistency; corrupted data can be automatically repaired if a redundant copy is available. Created by [[Sun Microsystems]] for use on [[Solaris (operating system)|Solaris]] 10 and [[OpenSolaris]], ported to [[FreeBSD]] 7.0, [[NetBSD]] (as of August 2009), [[Linux]] and to [[Filesystem in Userspace|FUSE]] (not to be confused with the two zFSes from [[IBM]])

 

* [[NOVA (filesystem)|NOVA]] – the "non-volatile memory accelerated" file system for persistent main memory.

* [[One File System|OneFS]] – a filesystem utilized by [[Isilon Systems|Isilon]]. It supports selective placement of meta-data directly onto flash SSD.

* [[Segger Microcontroller Systems]] emFile – filesystem for deeply embedded applications which supports both NAND and NOR flash. Wear leveling, fast read and write, and very low RAM usage.

* [[SPIFFS]] – SPI Flash File System, a wear-leveling filesystem intended for small NOR flash devices.

* Sequential access methods for IBM's [[z/OS]] and [[z/VSE]] mainframe operating systems: [[Basic Sequential Access Method]] (BSAM), [[Basic Partitioned Access Method]] (BPAM) and [[Queued Sequential Access Method]] (QSAM); see [[Access methods]] and [[Data set (IBM mainframe)]] for more examples

* [[Pick Operating System]] – A record-oriented filesystem and database that uses hash-coding to store data.

* [[Virtual Storage Access Method]] (VSAM){{snd}} for IBM's [[z/OS]] and [[z/VSE]] mainframe operating systems

 

Shared-disk file systems may be [[symmetric]] where [[metadata]] is distributed among the nodes or [[asymmetry|asymmetric]] with centralized [[metadata]] servers.

 

* [[Dell Fluid File System]] (formerly ExaFS) [[proprietary software]] sold by [[Dell]]. Shared-disk system sold as an appliance providing distributed file systems to clients. Running on Intel based hardware serving NFS v2/v3, SMB/CIFS and AFP to [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]], [[macOS]], [[Linux]] and other [[UNIX]] clients.

* [[Blue Whale Clustered file system]] (BWFS) from [[Tianjin Zhongke Blue Whale Information Technologies Co., Ltd.|Zhongke Blue Whale]]. Asymmetric. Available for [[Microsoft Windows]], [[Linux]], and [[macOS]].

* [[Tahoe-LAFS]] is an open source secure, decentralized, fault-tolerant filesystem utilizing encryption as the basis for a least-authority replicated design.

* A [[FAT12]] and [[FAT16]] (and [[FAT32]]) extension to support automatic file distribution across nodes with extra attributes like ''local'', ''mirror on update'', ''mirror on close'', ''compound on update'', ''compound on close'' in IBM [[4680 OS]] and Toshiba [[4690 OS]]. The distribution attributes are stored on a file-by-file basis in [[Design of the FAT file system#DIR|special entries]] in the directory table.<ref name="IBM_4690_OS_Distribution_Attributes_1">IBM (2003). ''Information about 4690&nbsp;OS unique file distribution attributes'', IBM document R1001487, 2003-07-30. ({{cite web |url=http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=pos1R1001487 |title=IBM Information about 4690 OS unique file distribution attributes - United States |access-date=2014-05-20 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140521070339/http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=pos1R1001487 |archive-date=2014-05-21 }}): "[...] file types are stored in the "Reserved bits" portion of the PC-DOS file directory structure [...] only 4690 respects and preserves these attributes. Various non-4690 operating systems take different actions if these bits are turned on [...] when copying from a diskette created on a 4690 system. [...] PC-DOS and Windows 2000 Professional will copy the file without error and zero the bits. OS/2 [...] 1.2 [...] will refuse to copy the file unless [...] first run CHKDSK /F on the file. After [...] CHKDSK, it will copy the file and zero the bits. [...] when [...] copy [...] back to the 4690 system, [...] file will copy as a local file."</ref><ref name="IBM_4690_OS_Distribution_Attributes_2">IBM. ''4690 save and restore file distribution attributes''. IBM document R1000622, 2010-08-31 ({{cite web |url=http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=pos1R1000622 |title=IBM 4690 save and restore file distribution attributes - United States |access-date=2014-05-20 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140521070536/http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=pos1R1000622 |archive-date=2014-05-21 }}).</ref>

 

=== Distributed parallel file systems ===

Some of the distributed parallel file systems use an [[object storage device]] (OSD) (in Lustre called OST) for chunks of data together with centralized [[metadata]] servers.

 

*[[Lustre (file system)|Lustre]] is an [[Open-source software|open-source]] high-performance distributed parallel file system for Linux, used on many of the largest computers in the world.

*[[Parallel Virtual File System]] (PVFS, PVFS2, [[OrangeFS]]). Developed to store virtual system images, with a focus on non-shared writing optimizations. Available for [[Linux]] under [[GNU General Public License|GPL]].

|-

| [[Gfarm file system]]

| [[X11 License]]

| [[Linux]], [[macOS]], [[FreeBSD]], [[NetBSD]] and [[Solaris (operating system)|Solaris]]

|-

| [[GlusterFS]]

| [[Linux]], [[macOS]], [[FreeBSD]]

| A [[POSIX]]-compliant, high-performance, [[Parallel File System|parallel filesystem]] used by [[High Performance Computing|HPC]] clusters. It uses [[erasure code|erasure coding]] and snapshots for data protection, is based upon a [[Scale out|scale-out]] [[Object storage|object store]], and is focused on transparent failure recovery and ease of use.

|-

| [[RozoFS]]

| [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]], [[Linux]], [[macOS]]

| A secure, decentralized, fault-tolerant, [[peer-to-peer]] [[distributed data store]] and [[distributed file system]].

|-

| [[XtreemFS]]

Some of these may be called [[cooperative storage cloud]].

 

* [[Scality]] is a distributed filesystem using the [[Chord (peer-to-peer)|Chord]] peer-to-peer protocol.

* [[IPFS]] InterPlanetary File System is p2p, worldwide distributed content-addressable, file-system.

* [[Freenet]] – Decentralized, censorship-resistant

* [[FTPFS]] (FTP access)

* GridFS – GridFS is a specification for storing and retrieving files that exceed the BSON-document size limit of 16 MB for [[MongoDB]].

* [[lnfs]] (long names)

* [[LTFS]] (Linear Tape File System for LTO and Enterprise tape)

* [https://nexustorage.com Nexfs] Combines Block, File, Object and Cloud storage into a single pool of auto-tiering POSIX compatible storage.

* [[OverlayFS]] – A [[union mount]] [[filesystem]] implementation for [[Linux]]. Used mainly by [[Docker (software)|Docker]] for its image layers.

* [[UMSDOS]], [[UVFAT]] – FAT file systems extended to store permissions and metadata (and in the case of UVFAT, [[VFAT]] long file names), used for Linux

* [[UnionFS]] – stackable unification file system, which can appear to merge the contents of several directories (branches), while keeping their physical content separate

 

=== Pseudo file systems ===

 

=== Encrypted file systems ===

* [[eCryptfs]] – a stacked cryptographic file system in the Linux kernel since 2.6.19

* [[EncFS]], GPL [[Disk encryption software|Encrypted file system]] in user-space

* [[Encrypting File System|EFS]] – an encrypted file system for [[Microsoft Windows]] systems and [[AIX operating system|AIX]]. An extension of [[NTFS]]

* [[ZFS]], with encryption support.

* [[Linux Userland Filesystem|LUFS]] (Linux userland file system – seems to be abandoned in favour of [[FUSE (linux)|FUSE]])

* [[Pass-to-Userspace Framework File Fystem|PUFFS]] (Userspace filesystem for NetBSD, including a compatibility layer called '''librefuse''' for porting existing FUSE-based applications)

* [[Virtual file system|VFS]] Virtual Filesystem