The people and company behind YAFFS.
Aleph One is a Cambridge-based technology company established in 1971. For over fifty years, we've been working at the forefront of embedded systems, developing solutions for clients across industries.
In 2002, we created YAFFS to solve a real problem: existing file systems weren't designed for the characteristics of NAND flash memory. What started as an internal project became one of the most widely-used flash file systems in the embedded world.
Today, YAFFS runs in millions of devices worldwide—from consumer electronics to NASA satellites. We continue to develop and support YAFFS while providing consultancy services to help companies solve their flash storage challenges.
In the early 2000s, NAND flash was becoming the storage medium of choice for embedded systems. But the file systems available at the time—designed for spinning disks or NOR flash—weren't well-suited for NAND's characteristics.
NAND flash has different requirements: it can only be erased in large blocks, individual pages wear out over time, and power failures during writes can cause serious problems. Existing file systems either didn't handle these issues or handled them poorly.
Charles Manning set out to build a file system designed specifically for NAND flash. The result was YAFFS—Yet Another Flash File System—a log-structured file system that properly handles all the quirks of flash memory.
YAFFS was released as open source, and adoption grew rapidly. Over the years, it's been refined and improved based on real-world feedback from thousands of deployments. Today, it's one of the most trusted file systems for embedded flash storage.
Chief Architect
Creator and lead developer of YAFFS. Charles has been working with flash storage since the early days of NAND adoption and continues to guide YAFFS development.
Managing Director
Leads Aleph One's business operations and client relationships. Laurie ensures that YAFFS users and commercial customers get the support they need.
Whether you have questions about YAFFS, need help with licensing, or want to discuss consultancy services, we'd be happy to hear from you.
For technical questions and community discussion, join the YAFFS mailing list.
Aleph One Ltd
The Old Courthouse
Bottisham
Cambridge
CB25 9BA
United Kingdom
Located in the historic village of Bottisham, just outside Cambridge. The Old Courthouse is a converted 19th-century building that now houses our offices.
Download YAFFS, explore the documentation, or get in touch with our team. We're here to help.