Journaling file system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journaling_file_system
Soft updates, an alternative to journaling file systems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_updates
http://www.usenix.org/event/usenix99/mckusick.html
Log-structured file system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log-structured_file_system
http://lwn.net/Articles/353411/