XFS is a high-performance journaling file system created by SGI (formerly Silicon Graphics Inc.) for their Irix Unix implementation. In May 2000, SGI released XFS under an open source license.

Like ReiserFS (but unlike Ext3), XFS uses a logical journal-- it does not journal literal filesystem blocks, but instead logs metadata changes. This is more space-efficient, and minimizes contention for the journal. Further filesystem performance benefits can be realized if the journal is stored on a separate partition or disk.

It comes by default with the 2.5.xx and 2.6.xx versions of the Linux kernel, but wasn't available to the 2.4.xx kernel, except as a patch, until version 2.4.25 when it was judged stable enough to be merged into the main development tree by Marcelo Tosatti, maintainer of the 2.4 branch.

There are also moves to port the filesystem to FreeBSD.

See also

• Comparison of file systems
• X_Font_Server

External links

• XFS: A high-performance journaling filesystem
• Advanced filesystem implementor's guide - Introducing XFS
• Advanced filesystem implementor's guide - Deploying XFS