Distributed File Systems
Low Priority16 min readUpdated October 9, 2026
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A local file system manages files on one machine. A distributed file system (DFS) manages files across many machines, but still lets applications use familiar paths like /logs/2026/05/24/app.log.
Behind that one path, the file may be split into pieces stored on dozens of servers. The DFS keeps track of where the pieces live, reads them back, checks them for corruption, and keeps the data available when servers fail.
In this chapter, we will look at what a distributed file system is, how it stores huge files across many machines, and how it keeps that data available when hardware fails. We will use HDFS as the main example, since its design is easy to follow and widely studied.