Attribute-Based Prediction of File Properties (HCS-TR-14-03)

We present evidence that attributes that are known to the file system when a file is created, such as its name, permission mode, and owner, are often strongly related to future properties of the file such as its ultimate size, lifespan, and access pattern. More importantly, we show that we can exploit these relationships to automatically generate predictive models for these properties, and that these predictions are sufficiently accurate to enable optimizations.