Recommended file systems

Db2® databases run on many of the file systems supported by the platforms the Db2 product runs on.

The file systems you can use depend on whether you want use the IBM® Db2 pureScale® Feature.

Db2 environments without the Db2 pureScale or Mutual Failover feature
Db2 pureScale environments

Db2 environments without the Db2 pureScale or Mutual Failover feature

IBM recommends the file systems shown in Table 1 for Db2.

Note: Undocumented limitations might exist for file systems not listed in Table 1. Support for unlisted file systems might be limited.

Table 1. File systems recommended for Db2¹
Platform	Operating System	File systems recommended
Linux®	Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)	IBM General Parallel File System² (GPFS) ext3 ext4 xfs VERITAS File System (VxFS) Network File System (NFS³) with IBM N-series Network File System (NFS³) with Network Appliance filers
Linux®	SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES)	GPFS ext3 ext4 xfs VERITAS File System (VxFS) NFS³ with IBM N-series NFS³ with Network Appliance filers B-Tree filesystem (btrfs)⁴
UNIX	AIX®	GPFS Enhanced Journaled File System (JFS2) NFS³ with IBM N-series NFS³ with Network Appliance filers VxFS
Windows	All Windows products	NTFS

Notes:

¹ For the latest updates to the list of recommended file systems, see File systems recommended for DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows.
²For more information on GPFS, see IBM General Parallel File System documentation
³ For information on which NFS versions are validated for use on various operating systems, see Verified network-attached storage systems for use with DB2 Universal Database Version 8.x, DB2 9.x, DB2 10.x.
⁴ Only installation to default btrfs root partition is supported. Db2 containers on btrfs are not supported.

Db2 pureScale environments

The Db2 pureScale Feature requires the IBM General Parallel File System (GPFS). This file system is installed and configured automatically by the Db2 pureScale Feature installer if it is not already installed. Refer to the installation prerequisites for more information about the specific version of GPFS required. For more information, see IBM General Parallel File System documentation.

Db2 Mutual Failover environments

The following file system types are supported for Db2 Mutual Failover environments running on Pacemaker-managed Linux clusters:

Journaled file system (JFS)
Second extended file system (ext2)
Third extended file system (ext3)
Fourth extended file system (ext4)
ReiserFS
XFS
ZFS

Note: The file system must be able to be mounted on both hosts in a Mutual Failover cluster.