SIGNALInfrastructure Software·Jun 22, 2026, 3:30 PMSignal55Medium term

Benchmarking Bcachefs 1.38.6: The First Release No Longer "Experimental"

Source: Phoronix

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Benchmarking Bcachefs 1.38.6: The First Release No Longer "Experimental"

Released last week was Bcachefs 1.38.6 with a host of performance improvements to this out-of-tree, copy-on-write file-system. Given all the performance improvements and this being the first release since Kent Overstreet dropped the "experimental" flag on the file-system, I decided to fire up some benchmarks looking at how the Bcachefs file-system performance has changed with this new version.

Why this matters
Why now

The Bcachefs file-system has matured to a point where its lead developer has removed the 'experimental' tag, coinciding with significant performance improvements.

Why it’s important

The maturity of high-performance, copy-on-write file systems like Bcachefs can enhance data integrity, storage efficiency, and potentially reduce operational costs for infrastructure.

What changes

Bcachefs is no longer considered experimental, indicating it is now more suitable for production environments, potentially offering a robust alternative to existing file systems.

Winners
  • · Cloud infrastructure providers
  • · Data centers
  • · Organizations with large data storage needs
  • · Linux ecosystem
Losers
  • · Legacy file system providers (indirectly)
Second-order effects
Direct

Increased adoption of Bcachefs in enterprise and cloud environments due to its stable status and performance gains.

Second

Enhanced resilience and efficiency of data storage infrastructure, supporting more demanding computational workloads.

Third

Potential for new data-intensive applications and workflows to emerge, leveraging the improved file system capabilities.

Editorial confidence: 90 / 100 · Structural impact: 40 / 100
Original report

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