Paul Jones posted on Mon, 19 May 2014 12:24:53 +0000 as excerpted: >> On Mon, May 19, 2014 at 3:40 PM, Le Nguyen Tran <lntran...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >>> >>> I have a plan to develop an IC controller for Network Attached >>> Storage (NAS). The main idea is converting software code into >>> hardware implementation. >>> >>> I plan to use btrfs as the file system specification for my NAS.
> Perhaps a better idea would be to use a low-cost low-power som module > to run Linux and btrfs code, and use an FPGA/ASIC to offload > compression/encryption/checksums and to possibly act as a raid > controller. Since btrfs will be under heavy development for the > foreseeable future I doubt it would be a good idea to lock it into > silicon. Using this approach the mature technologies can be hardware > accelerated, and the software parts are available for easy upgrades. > It also significantly reduces risk for your project, and VCs like that > sort of thing! This is a very good idea and what I was about to suggest. Certainly, btrfs is still not fully stable, and I really would hate to see the current implementation etched in silicon at this time. However, a hybrid approach where the mature bits such as (de-/)compression/checksums/ encryption are hardware etched/accelerated while the more general and still developing code is deployed as upgradeable firmware on a system-on- module sounds like a very good idea indeed, particularly if that firmware is deployed as a user-modifiable/replaceable free-as-in-freedom kernel in keeping with the spirit of the GPL under which the Linux kernel and thus btrfs are written. In other words... I doubt very much that any list regular here familiar with the continuing flow of bugs we see, as well as the roadmapped but not yet implemented features that people wanting a hardware implementation would certainly be interested in, would find the idea of a hardware implementation of anything like current code anything but nightmare material. =:^\ Maybe in a couple years... but even then, upgradeable firmware with critical mature bits offloaded for hardware acceleration sounds like a far better idea. -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-btrfs" in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
