EnhanceIO is a
disk cache module for the Linux kernel. Its goal is to use fast but relatively small
SSD drives to improve the performance of large but slow
hard drives
A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magneti ...
.
Overview
EnhanceIO makes it possible to add an SSD or other fast disk device as a cache to another block device, such as a hard drive, in order to improve the performance of the disk. It was initially based on Facebook's similar
Flashcache
Flashcache is a disk cache component for the Linux kernel, initially developed by Facebook since April 2010, and released as open source in 2011. Since January 2013, there is a fork of Flashcache, named EnhanceIO and developed by sTec, Inc. Si ...
module.
Unlike Flashcache and other caching solutions, it doesn't use the Linux device mapper.
This means it does not create a new block device and caching can be added to existing disks, without reformatting or even unmounting them. This makes it easy to add cache to existing systems.
History
EnhanceIO was first announced as a commercial product in 2011 by sTec Inc, a company specializing in SSD products. Late 2012 sTec published code for the Linux module on GitHub. Even though it was then soon submitted to the Linux kernel mailing list, it was never merged into the main kernel.
In 2013, Western Digital acquired sTec Inc. They offered the EnhanceIO product briefly under their HGST brand.
However, the project was soon discontinued and maintenance on the module halted.
As the project was abandoned, several forks were created with some patches to let EnhanceIO work on later kernels. As of 2017, the lanconnected fork seems to be most active.
See also
*
bcache
bcache (abbreviated from ''block cache'') is a cache in the Linux kernel's block layer, which is used for accessing secondary storage devices. It allows one or more fast storage devices, such as flash-based solid-state drives (SSDs), to act as ...
*
dm-cache
dm-cache is a component (more specifically, a target) of the Linux kernel's device mapper, which is a framework for mapping block devices onto higher-level virtual block devices. It allows one or more fast storage devices, such as flash-based ...
*
Flashcache
Flashcache is a disk cache component for the Linux kernel, initially developed by Facebook since April 2010, and released as open source in 2011. Since January 2013, there is a fork of Flashcache, named EnhanceIO and developed by sTec, Inc. Si ...
References
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Solid-state caching
Linux kernel-related software