CacheFS

CacheFS is a family of software technologies designed to speed up <a href="/facts/Distributed_file_system/Bz61f7Ce">distributed file system</a> file access for networked computers. They store copies (<a href="/facts/Web_cache/DqIBcWem">caches</a>) of files on secondary memory, typically a local <a href="/facts/Hard_disk/kekLSGSE">hard disk</a>, so that if a file is accessed again, it can be fetched locally at much higher speeds than networks typically allow.
CacheFS software is used on several <a href="/facts/Unix-like/YAKrAxzd">Unix-like</a> operating systems. The original Unix version was developed by <a href="/facts/Sun_Microsystems/VJ9EzEFd">Sun Microsystems</a> in 1993. Another version was written for Linux and released in 2003.
Network filesystems are dependent on a <a href="/facts/Computer_network/3w5RM99p">network</a> link and a remote <a href="/facts/Server_(computing)/dEaYFD7r">server</a>; obtaining a file from such a <a href="/facts/File_system/FdPm90uc">filesystem</a> can be significantly slower than getting the file locally. For this reason, it can be desirable to cache data from these filesystems on a local disk, thus potentially speeding up future accesses to that data by avoiding the need to go to the network and fetch it again. The software has to check that the remote file has not changed since it was cached, but this is much faster than reading the whole file again.

CacheFS open-in-new

CacheFS