Even though other file systems call them something else (e.g. NTFS uses the term FRS) and their actual fields might be in a different order and contain slightly different data; all file systems use some kind of file table that contains fixed-sized file records.
I am writing an object store that also can manage unstructured data just like a file system. It too has a table of object records that are all the same size. One of the secrets for managing large numbers of files (todays HDDs are big enough that you can create volumes with 100s of millions of files) is to keep this record as small as possible. The FRS in NTFS is 4096 bytes per file. Try storing that table in RAM when you have 200M files! My records are only 64 bytes in size. 16GB of RAM will easily cache the whole table and still give you memory to spare.
I am writing an object store that also can manage unstructured data just like a file system. It too has a table of object records that are all the same size. One of the secrets for managing large numbers of files (todays HDDs are big enough that you can create volumes with 100s of millions of files) is to keep this record as small as possible. The FRS in NTFS is 4096 bytes per file. Try storing that table in RAM when you have 200M files! My records are only 64 bytes in size. 16GB of RAM will easily cache the whole table and still give you memory to spare.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWIo6sia_hw