Fast-zeroing in a file system

An electronic apparatus, comprising:

• memory;
• and
• control circuitry coupled to the memory, the memory storing instructions which, when carried out by the control circuitry, cause the control circuitry to:
• receive a write request from a host computer,
• provide a data write command and a zero write command to backend storage in response to the write request from the host computer, the backend storage maintaining a file on behalf of the host computer, the data write command including host data to be written to the file, and the zero write command defining a field of zeroes to be written to the file, and
• send an acknowledgement to the host computer, the acknowledgement serving as a response to the write request from the host computer.

A computer program product having a non-transitory computer readable medium which stores a set of instructions to perform a host write operation on behalf of a host computer, the set of instructions, when carried out by computerized circuitry, causing the computerized circuitry to perform a method of:

• receiving a write request from the host computer;
• providing a data write command and a zero write command to backend storage in response to the write request from the host computer, the backend storage maintaining a file on behalf of the host computer;
• the data write command including host data to be written to the file, and the zero write command defining a field of zeroes to be written to the file;
• and
• sending an acknowledgement to the host computer, the acknowledgement serving as a response to the write request from the host computer.