Peeling Back the Layers of Storage - From Physical Disks to Advanced File Systems

Explore the intricate layers of Linux storage systems in this comprehensive 52-minute conference talk by John Hawley from VMware. Delve into the various storage options available in Linux, starting from the most basic physical storage and progressing through increasingly complex stacks. Learn about single disk and file system configurations, then advance to more sophisticated setups involving RAID, SSD caching, and deduplication. Gain insights into block, volume, and file systems, as well as advanced techniques like on-the-fly disk compression. Discover the different technologies available for achieving similar storage goals, and understand the components of complex storage systems. Topics covered include disk partitioning, device mapping, LVM, encryption, disk caching, SWAP, bind mounts, symlinks, and reflinks, with a special mention of ZFS on Linux.