{
  "slug": "icefs",
  "term": "IceFS",
  "aliases": [
    "Ice file system"
  ],
  "definition": "IceFS is a research filesystem that groups files into cubes to localize filesystem faults, recovery and journal transactions.",
  "note": "The OSDI 2014 prototype modifies Ext3/JBD in Linux 3.5. Cubes separate metadata allocation, bypass failed ancestor directories through indirection, and split transactions. Virtual journals still use shared journal space. [icefs-osdi14]\n\nMount-time failures can remain global. Independent commit threads can increase device flush overhead; this is filesystem containment, not device redundancy or universal performance isolation. [icefs-osdi14]",
  "status": "research",
  "advantages": [],
  "limitations": [],
  "related": [
    "failure-domain"
  ],
  "supersedes": [],
  "supersededBy": [],
  "firstSeen": null,
  "lastSeen": null,
  "updated": "2026-11-13",
  "citations": [
    {
      "id": "icefs-osdi14",
      "title": "Lanyue Lu et al. Physical Disentanglement in a Container-Based File System. OSDI 2014, pp. 81-96, sections 3.2, 4.1-4.3 and 5.2-5.5.",
      "url": "https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/osdi14/osdi14-paper-lu.pdf",
      "accessed": "2026-11-13"
    },
    {
      "id": "hesela-containment",
      "title": "Hesela: detection, containment and repair.",
      "url": "https://hesela.com/analyses/filesystem-checksum-error-detection/#icefs-containment",
      "accessed": "2026-11-13"
    }
  ],
  "provenance": [
    "Primary-source synthesis; no prototype execution or fault-injection replication."
  ]
}