Originally posted by Lazarus18
IBe got bought by Palm,
Be got bought by palm, but two of the architects of the Be filesystem are at apple right now, working on their filesystem. now i m not saying that i ve heard anything about a new filesystem. i haven t. not even vague distant rumors. however, i would bet as much as $3 (i m pretty poor), that they have something in development.
1. My first clue is that they hired the BFS guys. i read an interview with them only a couple of months ago. again, there was nothing about a new filesystem. this is all my speculation.
2. every OS in the industry is waking up to the benefits of journaling filesystems. they are now default on a lot of linux distros. MS is working on a content loaded filesystem, so that their word, access, WMA files are all transparent to the filesystem. It would be foolish of apple to be left behind in filesystem technologies when the rest of the industry is clearly changing. NB: this isn t really a clue that apple is developing a FS, only that they should be.
3. OSX is not really meant for HFS. right now OSX runs on HFS because it has to for compatibility. but you will notice how apple is advising people that they don t have to use the creator code and type code in the resource fork anymore. they can just use file extensions. OSX has UNIX tools in its chest, and almost none of them has any knowledge of the resource fork, the the underlying OS carries this overhead in the filesystem that it is simply not using.
Also as any traditional UNIX would, darwin sometimes expects case sensitivity, which HFS cannot provide. in other words, OSX and HFS are two strangers that we forced to get into bed together. again, this isn t a clue that apple is developing, just that they should be.
4. i m not sure what the specs of HFS are, but eventually hardware will outgrow it. this is sort of a blanket. i guess that anyone who has a filesystem has to be cognizant of its hardware constraints, and ready to upgrade it when the time is right.
so because of these reasons, i think it would be really stupid of apple not to be working on their next filesystem. i don t think it will come in the next 2 years, but i have no idea. and of course apple is very tightlipped about future projects.
anyway, i cast my vote for XFS (steve jobs, are you listening?)