New Android File System Makes Data Storage Smaller and Faster
As of Android 13, the mobile operating system will use a new file system. This leaves more space for storing other files such as photos.
Android currently uses the ext4 file system. But according to IT company Esper, which also maintains an Android blog, all devices from Android 13 are switching to erofs, which stands for Enhanced Read-Only File System.
Esper relies, among other things, on previous hints from Google, but also on references in the source code that announce the arrival of erofs. The big advantage is that it works faster and takes up less space for read-only parts of the storage. On the firmware of Android itself, there would be 800 megabytes of gain.
The new file system has been around for several years and was initially developed by Xiang Gao, an engineer then employed by Huawei. The company used it on millions of its phones when it was used in its software layer Emui 9.1. Since the end of 2019, it has also been included in the Linux kernel (from version 5.4) and since last year it has also been used by OPPO and Xiaomi.
The fact that all these works without significant problems now seems to be enough to make Google itself opt for the new system. Although for the sake of clarity, this only concerns the read-only part of your phone such as the firmware.
