Re: Question regarding to store file system metadata in database

[Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>]

On Sad, 2006-03-18 at 23:48 -0500, Xin Zhao wrote:
> database system. I ran a test on a mysql database: I inserted about
> 1.2 million such kind of records into an initially empty mysql
> database. Average insertion rate is about 300 entries per second,

Thats extremely slow for a file system. 

> Then I am a little curious why only few people use database to store
> file system metadata, although I know WinFS plans to use database to
> manage metadata. 

The one well known example of a database as file system (or was well
known) was the Pick OS (now defunct although the database system lives
on). They did manage to build an OS which had a database as a file
system.

The thing is a database and a file system are the same thing anyway.
You'll find the same structures like B trees used in some for example.
They are just optimised for different kinds of queries. If you want to
know whether a db as fs works , build a prototype and see - you've
already taken the first step and with FUSE you can prototype the rest in
user space.

Alan