Elevating commodity storage with the SALSA host translation layer

To satisfy increasing storage demands in both capacity and performance, industry has turned to multiple storage technologies, including Flash SSDs and SMR disks. These devices employ a translation layer that conceals the idiosyncrasies of their mediums and enables random access. Device translation layers are, however, inherently constrained: resources on the drive are scarce, they cannot be adapted to application requirements, and lack visibility across multiple devices. As a result, performance and durability of many storage devices is severely degraded. In this paper, we present SALSA: a translation layer that executes on the host and allows unmodified applications to better utilize commodity storage. SALSA supports a wide range of single- and multi-device optimizations and, because is implemented in software, can adapt to specific workloads. We describe SALSA's design, and demonstrate its significant benefits using microbenchmarks and case studies based on three applications: MySQL, the Swift object store, and a video server.Comment: Presented at 2018 IEEE 26th International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems (MASCOTS

FLARE: A design environment for FLASH-based space applications

Designing a mass-memory device (i.e., a solid-state recorder) is one of the typical issues of mission-critical space system applications. Flash-memories could be used for this goal: a huge number of parameters and trade-offs need to be explored. Flash-memories are nonvolatile, shock-resistant and power-economic, but in turn have different drawback: e.g., their cost is higher than normal hard disk and the number of erasure cycles is bounded. Moreover space environment presents various issues especially because of radiations: different and quite often contrasting dimensions need to be explored during the design of a flash-memory based solid-state recorder. No systematic approach has so far been proposed to consider them all as a whole: as a consequence a novel design environment currently under development is aimed at supporting the design of flash-based mass-memory device for space application

Exploring Design Dimensions in Flash-based Mass-memory Devices

Mission-critical space system applications present several issues: a typical one is the design of a mass-memory device (i.e., a solid- state recorder). This goal could be accomplished by using flash- memories: the exploration of a huge number of parameters and trade-offs is needed. On the one hand flash-memories are nonvolatile, shock-resistant and power-economic, but on the other hand their cost is higher than normal hard disk, the number of erasure cycles is bounded and other different drawbacks have to be considered. In addition space environment presents various issues especially because of radiations: the design of a flash- memory based solid-state recorder implies the exploration of different and quite often contrasting dimensions. No systematic approach has so far been proposed to consider them all as a whole: as a consequence the design of flash-based mass-memory device for space applications is intended to be supported by a novel design environment currently under development and refinemen