The latest version of Google's open source Android operating system, version 2.3 code named "Gingerbread", is to use the Ext4 file system. In a post on his Thoughts by Ted blog, Linux developer Theodore "Ted" Ts'o, who joined Google earlier this year after leaving his position as Linux Foundation's Chief Technology Officer, says that all new Android devices shipping with Gingerbread, starting with the recently announced Nexus S, will be using Ext4.

Previous to Gingerbread, Android devices typically used YAFFS (Yet Another Flash File System) as their default file system – there are some exceptions that use other file-systems. Ts'o notes that, as YAFFS is single threaded, "it would have been a bottleneck on dual-core systems". The developer also goes on to point out that, for all of its features, the Btrfs file system was not used because it is still considered to be at an unstable, beta stage of development.

Further details about Ext4 can be found in a feature article from The H Open entitled, "The Ext4 Linux file system".

See also:

(crve)