[yoodenvranx]

Yes, I know that there are approaches which use the normal file system.

But what I want is different:

I want a universial "DB for binary files" where I can store binary data and all its metadata.

Then I can use this DB to build a app for picture galleries, music collections and tons of other things.

This DB should also support:

* automatic checksumming so that I can detect data corruption

* Some sort of version history so that I can store multiple versions of a file

* there could be built-in replication which I can use to see the same data (or parts of it) on all my devices

[ViViDboarder]

Is this common enough a use case that it ought to be a file system feature?

Plenty of applications do just this today by using the file system plus an index in SQLite. Is that method insufficient?

[sfopdxnonstop]

You asked: "Is this common enough a use case?"

Then you answered your own question: "Plenty of applications do just this today".

So yes, it is a common enough case that it could/should be built into the OS.

[theamk]

Well, OS could certainly offer some support, like file change detection, but the main indexing is often too application specific.

Photo albums wants to do face recognition. Music player wants BPM detection. Should those be done by OS? I do not think so.

[sjy]

Sounds a lot like ZFS.

[__jal]

Exactly - ZFS offers everything on the bullet list.

[vondur]

I think the old BeOS supported what you are describing.

[waddlesplash]

And Haiku, its open-source successor does also.