Design, implementation, and performance evaluation of Flash memory-based File System on Chip

Abstract

Interoperability is an important requirement for portable storage devices that are increasingly being used to exchange and share data among diverse hosts. However, interoperability cannot be provided if different host systems use different file systems. To address this problem, we propose a storage device that contains a file system within itself, which we refer to as FSOC (File System On Chip). In this paper, we explain the design and implementation of a Flash memory-based FSOC as a proof-of-concept. We also propose a performance model for FSOC, which is derived by analyzing operations of the host and storage device. Using this model, we show that aside from qualitative benefits, there are quantitative benefits in using FSOC instead of a conventional storage device. Results from a series of experiments are given that compare the performance of a conventional storage device and the FSOC using synthetic workloads as well as real applications, which verifies the proposed model.