backend is stored under the `bucket/prefix` specified in the tier configuration with a custom name derived from a randomly generated uuid - e.g. `0b/c4/0bc4fab7-2daf-4d2f-8e39-5c6c6fb7e2d3`. The first two prefixes are characters 1-2,3-4 from the uuid. This format allows tiering to any cloud irrespective of whether the cloud in question supports versioning. The reference to the transitioned object name and transitioned tier is stored as part of the internal metadata for the object (or its version) on...

## Description of `xl.meta`

`xl.meta` is a new self describing backend format used by MinIO to support AWS S3 compatible versioning.
This file is the source of truth for each `version` at rest. `xl.meta` is a msgpack file serialized from a
well defined data structure. To understand `xl.meta` here are the few things to start with

re-synced, the `mc replicate resync start` command with optional flag of `--older-than` needs to be used to trigger re-syncing of previously replicated objects. This command generates a ResetID which is a unique UUID saved to the remote target config along with the applicable date(defaults to time of initiating the reset). All objects created prior to this date are eligible for re-replication if existing object replication is enabled for the replication rule the object satisfies. At the time of completion...

erasure sets to provide for uniform distribution across nodes*. This is to ensure that same number of drives are pariticipating in any erasure set. For example if you have 2 nodes with 180 drives then GCD is 15 but this would lead to uneven distribution, one of the nodes would participate more drives. To avoid this the affinity is given towards nodes which leads to next best GCD factor of 12 which provides uniform distribution.

- In this algorithm, we also make sure that we spread the drives out...