A distributed file system allows clients to access files present on multiple hosts through the network. As with NFS, the clients do not have direct access to the underlying block storage but interact with folders and files over the network using a protocol depending on the distributed filesystem in use.
The main advantages of using distributed file systems are as follows:
Fault-tolerance: The data is accessible to clients even after a specific number of host crashes. This is achieved by transparently replicating data across different nodes, as defined during their configuration phase. More copies mean more fault-tolerance.
Scalability: It is usually easy to hot-add new nodes to an active distributed filesystem, enabling you to increase tolerance or available storage space.
Avoiding vendor lock-in: It uses open standards so that you do not have to place your precious data on third-party storage solutions.
Affordability: It uses commodity hardware...