What does the filesystem give me?

Posted by Alec on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by Alec
Published on 2012-10-26T04:47:40Z Indexed on 2012/10/26 5:04 UTC
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Filed under:

linux

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filesystems

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ext4

I'm writing a specialised database. It currently sits atop of ext4, with one big file that it reads and writes to.

I'm wondering whether it would be worth forgoing the filesystem and reading and writing directly to the device. I already use O_DIRECT, so as far as I can tell it wouldn't require much of a code change.

What might the risks, advantages and disadvantages of forgoing the filesystem be? Is it likely to improve performance, or harm it?

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