Be File System: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 18:56, 3 June 2010

Revision as of 09:38, 9 July 2010

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{{infobox filesystem

| name = BFS

| full_name = Be File System

| developer = [[Be Inc.]]

| introduction_os = [[BeOS]] Advanced Access Preview Release<ref>{{cite web | url=http://web.archive.org/web/19991002123347/http://www.zdnet.com/products/osuser/boj/hacker10.html | title=BeOS Journal 10: A First Look at DR9 | author=Scot Hacker | date=1997-07-01 | work=ZDNet | accessdate=2007-03-22}}</ref>

| introduction_date = May 10, 1997

| partition_id = Be_BFS ([[Apple Partition Map]]) <br> 0xEB ([[Master Boot Record|MBR]])

| directory_struct = [[B+ tree]]

| file_struct = [[inode]]s

| bad_blocks_struct = inodes

| max_filename_size = 255 characters

| max_files_no = Unlimited

| max_volume_size = ~2 [[Exabyte|EB]] *

| max_file_size = ~260 [[Gigabyte|GB]] *

| filename_character_set = All [[UTF-8]] but "/"

| dates_recorded = Access, Creation, Modified

| date_range = Unknown

| date_resolution = 1s

| forks_streams = Yes

| attributes = POSIX ACLs: Read, Write, Execute

| file_system_permissions = Yes, POSIX (RWX per owner, group and all)

| compression = No

| encryption = No

| OS = [[BeOS]], [[Magnussoft ZETA|ZETA]], [[Haiku (operating system)|Haiku]], [[SkyOS]], [[Syllable (operating system)|Syllable]]

}}

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BFS was developed by [[Dominic Giampaolo]] and [[Cyril Meurillon]] over a ten month period, starting in September 1996,<ref name="practical-book">{{cite book | last=Giampaolo | first=Dominic | year=1999 | url=http://www.nobius.org/~dbg/practical-file-system-design.pdf | title=Practical File System Design with the Be File System | publisher=Morgan Kaufmann | isbn=1-55860-497-9 | format=PDF}}</ref> to provide [[BeOS]] with a modern [[64-bit]] capable [[journaling file system]].<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/03/29/windows_on_a_database_sliced/ | title=Windows on a database – sliced and diced by BeOS vets | author=Andrew Orlowski | date=2002-03-29 | publisher=The Register | accessdate=2006-12-09}}</ref> It is [[case sensitive]] and capable of being used on [[floppy]], [[hard disk]]s and read-only media such as [[CD-ROM]]s, although its use on small removable media is not advised, as the file system headers consume from 600KB to 2MB, rendering floppy disks virtually useless.

Like its predecessor, OFS (Old Be File System, written by [[Benoit Schillings]], was also called BFS when current),<ref name="bortmaninterview">{{cite web | url=http://www.birdhouse.org/beos/bible/bos/int_schillings.html | title=Benoît Schillings, Software Engineer | author=Henry Bortman | work=The BeOS Bible | accessdate=2006-09-10}}</ref> it includes support for extended file attributes ([[Metadata (computing)|metadata]]) with indexing and querying characteristics to provide functionality similar to that of a [[relational database]].

Whilst intended as a 64-bit capable file system, the size of some on-disk structures mean that practical size limit is approximately 2 exabytes. Similarly the extent based file allocation reduces the maximum practical file size to approximately 260 gigabytes at best and as little as a few blocks in a pathological worst case, depending on the degree of [[file system fragmentation|fragmentation]].

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As part of the OpenBeOS attempt (now [[Haiku (operating system)|Haiku]]) to recreate the BeOS operating system, in 2002 Axel Dörfler and a few other developers created and released a reimplemented BFS called OpenBFS.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://haikunews.org/482 | title=OBFS Reaches Beta | author=Daniel Teixeira | date=2002-09-04 | work=Haiku News | accessdate=2006-12-09 }}</ref> In January 2004, Robert Szeleney announced that he had developed a fork of this OpenBFS file system for use in his [[SkyOS]] operating system.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.skyos.org/?q=node/210 | title=Update | author=Robert Szeleney | date=2004-01-23 | work=skyos.org | accessdate=2006-12-09}}</ref> The regular OpenBFS implementation was also ported to [[Syllable (operating system)|Syllable]] and is included since version 0.6.5.

== See also ==

* [[Comparison of file systems]]

* [[AtheOS File System]]

==References==

{{reflistReflist}}

==External Linklinks==

* [http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/06/the-beos-filesystem.ars The BeOS file system: an OS geek retrospective]

{{Filesystem}}