exFAT Gets a Significant Speed Boost in Linux 7.2 with IOmap Conversion
- Linux Kernel Drops 40-Year-Old AppleTalk Protocol — AI-Generated Patch Flood Was the Last Straw
- Apple’s Native Linux Container Tool Has Arrived — But Can It Really Replace Docker?
- 60% of MD5 Password Hashes Can Be Cracked in Under an Hour with a Single GPU
- Dirty Frag: Root Access on Every Major Linux Distribution — No Patch, No Warning
- How Close Are Quantum Computers to Breaking RSA-2048?
- What is the best alternative to Microsoft Office?
exFAT Gets a Significant Speed Boost in Linux 7.2 with IOmap Conversion
The upcoming Linux 7.2 kernel is set to deliver meaningful performance improvements for the exFAT file system, thanks to a long-awaited migration to the IOmap infrastructure — an upgrade that benefits the tens of millions of users who rely on exFAT-formatted USB drives and removable storage cards every day.
The exFAT file system driver on Linux has now been adapted to use the IOmap infrastructure for buffered I/O, direct I/O, and LLSEEK SEEK_HOLE/SEEK_DATA support. The work was led by Namjae Jeon, who serves as maintainer for both the exFAT driver and the new NTFS Linux driver that shipped with Linux 7.1 earlier this month. The exFAT pull request has already been merged into the Linux 7.2 tree.
What Is IOmap and Why Does It Matter?
IOmap is the Linux kernel’s modern framework for mapping logical file offsets to physical storage blocks. It was designed as a replacement for the older buffer head mechanism that had been present in the kernel for decades, and it provides a unified path for handling common file operations across multiple file systems.
File systems that have already migrated to IOmap — such as XFS, ext4, and Btrfs — have consistently shown improved throughput and lower CPU overhead compared to their buffer-head-based implementations. The exFAT migration brings the same architectural benefits to a file system that is ubiquitous on portable storage worldwide.
“With the patches converting exFAT to use IOmap for these common operations, there are some very nice performance gains.”
— Phoronix, reporting on the merged pull request, June 20, 2026
Performance Gains Confirmed by Benchmarks
According to the patch notes submitted to the Linux kernel mailing list and confirmed by the merged pull request, the IOmap conversion produces “very nice performance gains” across standard benchmark scenarios. The official pull request summary describes the results as reflecting “considerable performance improvements,” encompassing both throughput and response time across typical use patterns such as sequential reads, writes, and random access on removable media.
These improvements are particularly relevant for users who frequently transfer large files between systems using exFAT-formatted drives — a common scenario in photography, videography, and general data portability workflows where exFAT is the default format chosen by camera manufacturers and consumer electronics.
More Than Just a Speed Upgrade
The exFAT changes landing in Linux 7.2 go beyond performance alone. The pull request also includes a range of bug fixes and code quality improvements that refine the overall reliability of the driver. This makes the 7.2 update a well-rounded release for exFAT on Linux rather than a narrowly focused optimization pass.
What’s New for exFAT in Linux 7.2
- Full migration to IOmap for buffered I/O, direct I/O, and LLSEEK operations
- Replaces the legacy buffer head mechanism with the modern IOmap framework
- Notable throughput and latency improvements confirmed in benchmarks
- Numerous bug fixes and code quality improvements bundled in the same pull request
- Maintained by Namjae Jeon, also the author of the new in-kernel NTFS driver
Context: A Busy Season for Linux File Systems
The exFAT IOmap conversion follows a period of significant file system activity in the Linux kernel. Linux 7.1, released on June 14, 2026, shipped with a fully rewritten NTFS driver — four years in the making — that also leverages IOmap and delivers full write support with delayed allocation. exFAT users had already benefited from pre-allocation support via fallocate() in that release.
Linux 7.2 is currently in its merge window and is expected to reach release in mid-to-late August 2026, with the first release candidate anticipated around June 28th.
Source: Phoronix — exFAT File-System Enjoys Better Performance On Linux 7.2 With IOmap Conversion, Michael Larabel, June 20, 2026.
