exFAT File-System Performance On Linux 5.9

Now that the Samsung-contributed open-source exFAT file-system kernel driver has matured quite nicely since being merged earlier this year as a replacement to the short-lived staging exFAT driver based on an older code-base, here is a look at how exFAT is performing on the Linux 5.9 kernel compared to EXT4 and F2FS as well as the existing exFAT FUSE file-system implementation.

With Linux 5.8~5.9 the modern exFAT Linux kernel driver appears to be in good shape and thus time for running some benchmarks on it. In our testing so far it has worked quite reliably and in better shape than the former staging driver that was merged in late 2019. Linux 5.9.1 stable was used for all of the file-system benchmarking today and carried out on an AMD Renoir laptop.

Given that Microsoft exFAT is predominantly used on portable/removable media, for this benchmarking all tests were carried out on a SanDisk 128GB Ultra Luxe USB 3.1 Gen 1 flash drive. Tested configurations were exFAT using the former FUSE file-system driver (File-System In User-Space), the current exFAT kernel driver in Linux 5.9, EXT4, and F2FS. Each time the default mount options were used.

Via the Phoronix Test Suite various Linux storage benchmarks were carried out.