High performance optical file system

High Performance Optical File System (HPOFS) is an IBM-developed media format architecture available to use when initializing optical media.

Use the WORM-based version of HPOFS. This media format is designed (and required) for WORM media, but you can use it (and it is the default) when initializing erasable optical media. HPOFS is a WORM media format. You can write each sector of the media only once when creating and updating files and directories. This unique characteristic of never rewriting the same sector allows all previous versions of every file to remain on the media. One drawback of this is that media consumption continues to grow as you update and even delete files.

This section contains detailed information about HPOFS for directly attached optical media libraries. This section does not discuss HPOFS characteristics for LAN-attached optical media libraries.

Detailed information about the implementation of HPOFS for directly attached optical media libraries is available in the command support for media formats.