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Next3® File System

Next3®: Enabling Thin Provisioned Snapshots

CTERA has developed an open-source file system named Next3, based on the ubiquitous Ext3 file system, for the purpose of supporting enterprise-grade snapshot capabilities.

Snapshots are useful for recovering previous version of files that were accidentally overwritten or lost, and are often required for regulatory compliance purposes or for disaster recovery.

Next3 provides the ability to create highly-efficient multiple snapshots that create restore points for the entire volume, with minimal impact on file system performance. The Next3 snapshots use dynamically allocated space, so there is no need to pre-allocate and waste valuable space on the disk for snapshots, and unused space is automatically recovered for file system use.

Key Features

  • Dynamic allocation of disk space for snapshot use
  • Deleted snapshot space automatically recovered for file system use
  • Supports multiple snapshots with no deterioration in performance
  • Forward and backward compatible with Ext3

 

Next3 Applications

Next3 is available as standard in CTERA's Cloud Attached Storage appliances, where it is used to provide advanced network storage versioning capabilities, including:

  • Scheduled snapshot creation: Automatically create snapshots according to the desired schedule
  • Snapshot retention policy: Automatically determine when old snapshots are deleted

Additional Resources:

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