Summary
Explore the key aspects of flash-based SSDs to understand their technology, performance challenges, and optimization methods. This lesson introduces core concepts like flash memory structure, Flash Translation Layers, wear leveling, and garbage collection. You'll gain foundational knowledge to approach advanced research and practical applications of SSD persistence in modern computing environments.
We'll cover the following...
Flash-based SSDs are becoming a common presence in laptops, desktops, and servers inside the datacenters that power the world’s economy. Thus, you should probably know something about them, right?
Here’s the bad news: this chapter (like many in this course) is just the first step in understanding the state of the art. Some places to get some more information about the raw technology include:
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research on actual device performance (such as that by
Chen et al. “Understanding Intrinsic Characteristics and System Implications of Flash Memory based Solid State Drives” by Feng Chen, David A. Koufaty, and Xiaodong Zhang. SIGMET- RICS/Performance ’09, Seattle, Washington, June 2009. An excellent overview of SSD performance problems circa 2009 (though now a little dated). Grupp et al. “Characterizing Flash Memory: Anomalies, Observations, and Applications” by L. M. Grupp, A. M. Caulfield, J. Coburn, S. Swanson, E. Yaakobi, P. H. Siegel, J. K. Wolf. IEEE MICRO ’09, New York, New York, December 2009. Another excellent characterization of flash performance. -
issues in FTL design (including works by
Agrawal et al. “Design Tradeoffs for SSD Performance” by N. Agrawal, V. Prabhakaran, T. Wobber, J. D. Davis, M. Manasse, R. Panigrahy. USENIX ’08, San Diego California, June 2008. An excellent overview of what goes into SSD design.