IO_uring, NVMe and Other Block and Device Mapper Changes Merged for Linux 7.2
The Linux 7.2 kernel merge window has integrated several storage subsystem updates, including improvements to IO_uring, NVMe, and device mapper. These changes aim to enhance performance and support for modern storage hardware.
Background
- **io_uring** is a Linux kernel API (added in 2019) for fast, non-blocking I/O — it lets apps submit and complete disk/network operations without waiting, boosting performance for databases and servers.
- **NVMe** is the modern protocol for high-speed SSDs, directly over PCIe, replacing older SATA-based storage.
- **Device Mapper** is a Linux kernel framework enabling storage features like RAID (md), encryption (dm-crypt), volume management (LVM), and snapshots by creating virtual block devices.
- **Linux 7.2** refers to the in-development Linux kernel (the 7.x branch is very recent). The merged changes include updates to io_uring, NVMe drivers, and the block/device-mapper layers — performance improvements, new hardware support, and bug fixes.
- These low-level kernel changes matter because they affect the speed and reliability of storage on virtually all Linux systems, from cloud servers to personal computers.