File System Performance Enhancements

Traditional file systems employ block based allocation schemes that provide adequate random access and latency for small files, but which limit throughput for larger files. As a result, they are less than optimal for commercial environments.

VxFS addresses this file system performance issue through an alternative allocation method and increased user control over allocation, I/O, and caching policies. An overview of the VxFS allocation policy is provided in the section “Extent Based Allocation”.

VxFS provides the following performance enhancements:

The rest of this chapter, as well as Chapter 2 “VxFS Performance: Creating, Mounting, and Tuning File Systems” and Chapter 4 “Application Interface” provide details on many of these features.