Leil FS (successor of SAUNAFS) - The Engine of Open Hyperscale Storage
The truly open-source distributed file system. GPL-3.0 licensed. Commercial-ready. Built for petabyte scale.
Converting hardware timeouts (seconds) into software reconstruction (milliseconds)
Why Leif FS?
Truly Open
No “Business Source License” restrictions. GPL-3.0 means you can build, deploy, and profit freely. Your code, your infrastructure, your rules.
Commercial Ready
Battle-tested in production at petabyte scale. Enterprise features: erasure coding, uRaft HA, CoW snapshots, SMB, S3, NFSv4 ACLs — all included in the open-source core.
POSIX Reliable
Full POSIX compliance for seamless Linux and Windows integration. No proprietary APIs. Standard filesystem semantics your applications already expect.
The Leil FS Advantage
GPL-3.0 Freedom
No business source restrictions. Commercial-ready under GPL-3.0. Fork it, ship it, profit from it.
POSIX Compliant
Seamlessly integrates with Linux and Windows environments. Standard filesystem semantics.
Petabyte Scale Ready
Petabytes to exabytes with zero downtime. Chunk-based architecture inspired by Google File System.
Virtualization Ready
Native Proxmox plugin and Kubernetes Operator with CSI driver for seamless orchestration.
Universal Packaging
Apt-repo, Docker Hub (multi-arch), and RPM. Built for Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora.
Hacker-Friendly
Direct engineering communication. No fluff. Just high-performance storage. Join Matrix and talk to the developers.
Technical Core
Inspired by Google FS. Built for Petabytes.
Leil FS is a distributed POSIX file system inspired by the Google File System, comprising Metadata Servers (Master, Shadows, Metaloggers), Data Servers (Chunkservers), and Clients (supporting multiple operating systems and NFS). It employs a chunk-based storage architecture, segmenting files into 64 MiB chunks subdivided into 64 KiB blocks, each with 4 bytes of CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) for data integrity.
Protocol Stack
NFSv3/NFSv4 (Ganesha FSAL) · Samba · S3 (Versity gateway) · Native LeilFS POSIX client for Linux.
Enterprise Features
NFSv4 + POSIX ACLs · Granular quotas (user/group/directory) · Async recursive deletion · Automatic rebalancing · HDD/SSD tiering.
Monitoring & Observability
Prometheus-native storage exporter. Kubernetes-ready with CSI driver and Operator. Automated disk management.
Erasure Coding & Replication
The replication goal for specific files and directories can be configured to use Erasure Coding based on Reed-Solomon for redundancy purposes. By performing erasure coding on the client side, Leil OS™ distributes the computational load across the network, ensuring that data is protected the moment it leaves the host.
Leil OS™ eliminates performance bottlenecks by utilizing a Parallel HDD-Native™ Architecture that fundamentally separates the data and metadata paths. By using this decoupled data path, the client communicates with the master for metadata while simultaneously interacting with chunkservers in parallel for raw I/O.
Client-Side Erasure Coding Architecture
Leil FS™ eliminates legacy performance bottlenecks by utilizing a Parallel HDD-Native™ Architecture that fundamentally separates data and metadata paths. This decoupled approach allows the client to communicate with the Master for metadata operations while simultaneously interacting with Chunkservers in parallel for raw I/O. By performing Erasure Coding (EC) directly within the client-side process, data is protected the moment it leaves the host, distributing the computational “cost” across your entire network of clients rather than taxing the storage tier. For any individual client, the CPU resources required for EC are a tiny fraction of its total capacity, preventing storage servers from becoming a bottleneck even in dense configurations with 100+ drives per node.
The Architectural Advantage
Leaner Hardware Footprint
Chunkservers focus exclusively on I/O, not computation. Lower CPU requirements per node mean more cost-effective, specialized infrastructure.
Lower Total Cost of Ownership
Reduced hardware specifications at the storage tier translate directly to lower procurement and operational costs.
Superior Scalability
Adding storage capacity no longer adds proportional compute overhead; the architecture scales linearly to meet exabyte-scale demands.
Choose your edition
While most softwares do not support SMRs, Leil OS brings hyperscale-level efficiency to on-premise environments—unlocking the industry’s most widely deployed, high-capacity, and efficient drives for broader adoption. Our advanced file system handles HM-SMR write management natively, with no firmware hacks, no performance penalties, and no forked software stacks.
Open Source vs Enterprise Features
| Open-Source Core Features | Enterprise Features |
|---|---|
| Resilient Architecture | Open Source Core Features |
| High Availability | Windows Client Console |
| Seamless Hardware Refresh and Expansion | Flexible Mounting Modes |
| Data Integrity | User or System Level Drives |
| Robust Redundancy with EC and Standard Replication | Host-Managed SMR Drives Support |
| Instant Copy-on-write Snapshots | ICE (Infinite Cold Engine) |
| Protocol Interoperability and Support(NFS / Native Client / Samba / S3) | Leil Connect |
| Advanced ACL Framework | Leil Navigator |
| POSIX & Flock Advisory Locking | Exabyte Scale |
| Granular Quota Management | Double-Level Erasure Coding |
| Fast Recursive Deletion | HDD native Feature Set: Head Depop |
| SSD & CMR HDD Support | Advanced SMR Support |
| Periodic Scrubbing for Data Integrity | Extra Local Erasure Coding |
| Automatic and Tunable Data Rebalancing | Hardware Top Performance Package |
| Full Support of Variable Capacity and various Recording Technologies in Hybrid Environments |