Btrfs founder Chris Mason is hoping that the upstart Linux filesystem will one day find its way into mainstream Linux enterprise distributions as a default. That would mean pushing aside popular filesystems like Ext3 and Ext4 that are currently in widespread use, and Mason admits that more needs to be done to refine Btrfs.
But Mason, the director of software development at Oracle, argues that features unique to the filesystem, such as the copy-on-write approach that avoids overwriting data during normal operations, position Btrfs as an attractive alternative to today’s Linux filesystems for enterprise use. Linux Planet takes a look.
Since at least 2008, the Btrfs Linux filesystem has been talked about as a next-generation technology one day potentially rivaling or supplanting the current dominant Linux filesystems.
According to Chris Mason, founder of the Btrfs effort and now director of software development at Oracle, Btrfs is today generally stable and usable even though it’s yet to be finalized. And although he admits the filesystem still has some issues to overcome as development continues, Mason said he would like to see Btrfs ultimately replacing existing Linux filesystems like the popular Ext3 and Ext4 systems that are often the default on enterprise Linux distributions.