We introduce external synchrony, a new model for local \u0002file I\/O that provides the reliability and simplicity of synchronous I\/O, yet also closely approximates the performance of asynchronous I\/O. An external observer cannot distinguish the output of a computer with an externally synchronous file system from the output of a computer with a synchronous file system. No application modi\u0002fication is required to use an externally synchronous \u0002file system: in fact, application developers can program to the simpler synchronous I\/O abstraction and still receive excellent performance. We have implemented an externally synchronous fi\u0002le system for Linux, called xsyncfs. Xsyncfs provides the same durability and ordering guarantees as those provided by a synchronously mounted ext3 \u0002file system. Yet, even for I\/O-intensive benchmarks, xsyncfs performance is within 7% of ext3 mounted asynchronously. Compared to ext3 mounted synchronously, xsyncfs is up to two orders of magnitude faster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We introduce external synchrony, a new model for local \u0002file I\/O that provides the reliability and simplicity of synchronous I\/O, yet also closely approximates the performance of asynchronous I\/O. An external observer cannot distinguish the output of a computer with an externally synchronous file system from the output of a computer with a synchronous file […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","msr-author-ordering":[{"type":"text","value":"Peter M. 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